RYE — Owners of Rye Harbor businesses have not received new right-of-entry agreements from the Pease Development Authority to operate during the 2025 season, causing proprietors to question their future on Ocean Boulevard.
For years, businesses at Rye Harbor have sold saltwater fishing tackle, bait and gear, taken guests on whale watches and deep sea fishing excursions, sold lobster rolls, chowder and Seacoast-themed apparel. Summers at the harbor are packed with locals and seasonal visitors frequenting the businesses and taking their boats out on the water.
But with the new year approaching fast, the shack business owners say they have not received new deals to sign to continue at the harbor next year. Current three-year agreements between them and the Pease Development Authority expire at the end of April, according to multiple harbor business owners. The PDA has previously said the harbor is losing money and changes are needed.
“We’ve never really had this process like this before,” said Pete Reynolds, who has co-owned Granite State Whale Watch with his wife since 2006. “I don’t know and that’s not a great feeling.”
The state property where the shacks are located at 1870 Ocean Blvd. is also home to Petey’s Summertime Seafood and Black Dog Charters, among other harborside businesses. Rye Harbor State Park is nearby.
Study of future of Rye Harbor in works
Meanwhile, the Pease Development Authority released a request for qualifications and proposals for improvements to Rye Harbor. The state agency received two bidders by its Dec. 5 deadline and is scheduled to select a firm for the harbor assessment in January, according to a project schedule. The study would kick off at the start of February.
The Pease Development Authority has set four goals for the assessment to achieve, including ensuring the harbor “is an asset open to use by all” and to increase “income potential at the harbor,” the request for qualifications and proposals says. The study would also make certain no future upgrades at the harbor cause environmental harm, in addition to giving the public “clear, transparent, and fair rules and procedures that provide equal opportunity to make use of any facility or to seek a right of entry/concession” at Rye Harbor.
The Pease Development Authority’s Port Committee met Monday, Dec. 16. Neil Levesque, vice chairperson of the agency’s board of directors, told meeting attendees the Pease Development Authority wants to see business at Rye Harbor in 2025 and stated it is simultaneously “working on” right-of-entry agreements and selecting a bidder for the assessment.
“We’re going to move at a good pace, keeping with our schedule,” Levesque said of the assessment process. “We understand that there are businesses that have right-of-entries that have concerns about getting that right-of-entry for the next season. We want the next season to continue, too.”
Levesque added business owners and members of the public will have several opportunities to weigh in on the future of Rye Harbor.
Rye Harbor shack owners concerned
The harbor’s business owners have been on edge as the Pease Development Authority has toyed with ideas of how to improve Rye Harbor. In summer 2024, the Pease Development Authority came under fire for proposing to build a one-story, 12-unit raised commercial building at the harbor, a $1 million federally-funded design that was later paused due to community outcry.
The study would have been conducted with funding from an American Rescue Plan Act grant.
In August, owners of the shacks spoke against the proposal at a Pease Development Authority board of directors meeting. The month following, the Pease Development Authority board of directors put the proposal on hold.
Suzy Anzalone, finance director for the Pease Development Authority, reported in August that Rye Harbor lost $375,000 in cash last fiscal year due to damage from coastal storms and flooding.
Adam Baker, owner of Vintage Fish Company at the harbor, said at the Dec. 16 Port Committee meeting that the Pease Development Authority should weigh offering longer right-of-entry agreements to business owners at Rye Harbor.
“I renovated my building in Rye Harbor. I put a lot of money and time into it. Extending the terms more than two years would be beneficial and it would help incentivize people to put money into their buildings and make them nicer,” he said.
Baker disputed language in the Pease Development Authority’s request for qualifications and proposals suggesting the harbor is not open to the general public.
“It’s not a beach. It’s a harbor. It’s a mixed-use, commercial, recreational use harbor. Anybody that wants to use it can. The road is open,” Baker said at the meeting.
Mike Donahue, vice chairperson of the state’s Port Advisory Council, told the Port Committee a petition has been filed asking for the Pease Development Authority to adopt specific rules relative to right of entry agreements at Rye Harbor.
Donahue stated at the Dec. 16 Port Committee meeting that the questions surrounding Rye Harbor right-of-entry deals aren’t “going to go away.”
“We appreciate receiving something from the Pease Development Authority that says that you’re going to address this, whatever you do,” he said. “We’re not here advocating for any action. But as a public body, when we get a petition, we can’t ignore it.”
Pease Development Authority urged to be transparent and open
State Rep. Peggy Balboni, D-Rye, called for clearer communication from the Pease Development Authority board of directors members at the Dec. 16 Port Committee meeting.
“As a representative, I think it’s important that myself and the other representatives from Rye and the area are informed when the meetings are going to take place,” she said.
A sense of uncertainty looms. Reynolds compared the current feeling to the early stretch of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Granite State Whale Watch was operating at 40% capacity for an entire season and one of its boats was taken out of the water for the year with Star Island shut down in 2020.
Ticketing for the whale watch’s upcoming season begins online Feb. 1, but Reynolds and his wife have yet to set prices for rides.
“For a board and an outfit that keeps talking about transparency, openness, communication and everything, there’s absolutely none,” Reynolds said of the Pease Development Authority board of directors.
