At Tuesday night’s regular Southold Town Board meeting, members approved a $2.6 million bond for the Fishers Island Ferry District to purchase the vacant U.S. Coast Guard building on the island.
The property consists of a small house and a waterfront ferry dock. Town Supervisor Al Krupski said this acquisition will make it safer for the ferry district to operate.
“They had interest in it to protect their own operations there,” Mr. Krupski said. “There’s a lot of weather there and a ferry is a big boat. They need to have the room that they need.”
The next step in the purchase is to get through the bid process successfully.
“The bid process is ongoing so they have to go through that process and see if they can win the bid,” Mr. Krupski said.
The Fishers Island Ferry District declined The Suffolk Times’ request for comment.
In January, the Town Board voted on a bond resolution to spend up to $2.1 million to purchase the facility. In October 2023, New York State Troopers vacated the nearby barracks they had used as a police station for over a decade.
The board planned to use the structure along with barracks as living and or office space for state troopers patrolling the island. Southold Town Police Officers patrol the island while town officials search for solutions to get the troopers to return.
At an April board meeting, the resolution for the bond was withdrawn and Mr. Krupski confirmed to The Suffolk Times that the town was no longer interested in purchasing the facility and would shift their focus to addressing the infrastructure needs of the barracks.
Mr. Krupski also said that the town engineer was working on a plan for the renovation but he wasn’t sure how long the renovations would take or how much it would cost the town, once an agreement is reached for the troopers return to the island.
Town Engineer Michael Collins said no decisions have been made yet on renovation plans.
“We’re still looking at a couple of different options,” he said. “No decisions have been made on what to do yet.”
The Coast Guard station was shuttered as part of a consolidation with other small regional stations several years ago. The Coast Guard maintains larger facilities in New London and Montauk.
Fishers Island Ferry District has a five-person board of commissioners, a team of four managers, and over 20 personnel, according to its website.
The Fishers Island Ferry District operates two marine vessels the Munnatawket and Race Point, which travel from New London,Connecticut to Fishers Island, New York year round for non-commercial travel. Their summer schedule which runs from June 13 through September 4 is available on their website. They have two missions.
“The primary mission of the Fishers Island Ferry District is to provide safe, reliable, courteous, professional, convenient and cost effective public marine transportation services from Fishers Island, New York to the Connecticut mainland year-round,” the website states.
The secondary mission is to “manage certain real property owned by the Town of Southold and location on Fishers Island,” according to the website.