West Alton Marina Redevelopment
 

I noticed that West Alton Marina is requesting NH DES for a permit to completely redevelop their facilities. They plan to move the store, boathouse, gas facilities and add +/- 200 dock slips!
How can they be allowed to add 200 docks slips? I thought the rule is one slip per 75' of averaged water frontage.

If they applied for a permit, it’s up to the state and DES to say yes or no. How much land do they own there...?

Dan

The plan was done by Benchmark Engineering. I am sure it must be within the limits of the law to do this expansion. The amount of engineering involved would not be cheap. Will be quite the place if completed, although I don't know if I would want to be docking in there.
Can't imagine the amount of added congestion. Good luck ever getting gas there!

Taking a look at the DES query is interesting, it's fun to see what is going on by town.

There is a lot of land back there not being used, so they must have a long term plan for its use. Relating to fuel, Never had an issue getting gas at Mountain View, and they have many more slips than West Alton I would bet.

Good luck to them, great place to slip a boat, good guys, and the lake needs more slips so seems like a win...win

Mountain View has 284 slips and over 100 boats in rack storage. In addition to that, there are a small amount of trailer boats and jet skis that put in and out at the ramp.

At one time over half of the slips were occupied by renters and not used by their owners but I don't know what the number is today.

Another 200 boats on the lake that is already crowded on weekends. I'm glad I'm on Waukewan!

I am just trying to picture another 200 boats in and out of that channel. It can get rather busy on the weekends. Lots of boaters stop in for gas and the store as well. With the sand bar at the mouth as well, I really see a lot of congestion coming.

I have no problem with West Alton, in fact I like the place. Good for them for growing their already successful business.

I'm glad I am on Winnisquam!

I use to be on winnisquam. I loved it there.

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Not to worry, the state will install a couple of traffic circles between the mouth and the sand bar. Problem solved.

Or roundabouts, if they don't like the traffic circle idea. :laugh:

In all seriousness, I wonder what the average number of extra boats would be in use if they added 200 slips.

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I don’t think you’d notice a huge difference except for the big holiday weekends.
We use the lake weekdays and have learned that the weekends are exponentially, crazy. I’ll fish til 9-10 am then hightail it home for the craziness.

Yeah, I hear ya. Doesn't really matter to us in the North either way--pretty much always quiet there!

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West Alton Marina Project
 

I am a customer there and know the owner well. His family owed a lot of land behind and slightly south west of the marina. The project is posted on the wall of their little shop, it is really nice and they will be using the inland area for storage and service. They will be building a very nice facility somewhat like the new patrol building in Gilford.

I applaud the effort and they have had to fight Alton every step of the way. By the way, they are the largest tax payer in Alton if I am correct and the town has been crappy every step of the way. Their legal bill alone must be thousands and thousands of dollars.

I can say first hand that Alton, the Town Attorney and the Selectmen can be very unscrupulous and under handed to deal with. My hope is the new Town Administrator is doing her best to make changes in all those areas.

Same here, I plan vacation days during the week throughout the summer and never go up on the weekends. WAM is a ghost town with the exception of a few friends who stay there all summer long. It's great having the broads all to yourself!

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If you used Mountain View as an example I think the additional number of boats being used would be quite small. Even on a nice holiday weekend it seems like at most 10 to 15% of the boats get used and the rest stay in their slips.

I don't know if West Alton's plan is to rent the slips or sell them. Either way the demand for slips seems pretty high so I doubt they will have trouble filling them.

Diesel
 

I'd love for them to sell diesel so that Y Landing would have some competition. Note that Silver Sands no longer has a gas dock, so many of their boats get fuel at MVYC. Irwin Marine does a great job of staffing the gas dock, so there is rarely a back up.

Both MVYC and Silver Sands have great beaches. People walk to the beach instead of heading for a sandbar, so yes, there may not be as much in and out traffic as you's think.
Depends on how WAM fills the slip, day boats or cruisers.

Wam
 

When I asked about the project, I was told by management that if approved it could be almost a 10 year build out, so I doubt any real changes to traffic etc for quite a while. Like moving the gas dock a few years ago the plan seems to improve every facet of the marina, including gas and repairs.

So far they have been good stewards of the Marina and I hope they get the approvals.