Bike Week short term gain for Laconia?

More than two weeks after the 81st Laconia Motorcycle Rally & Race Week concluded, the event is still making news.

A police officer has been criticized for distributing T-shirts during Bike Week that satirically charged the City Council with bending over backwards to meet the city’s business interests for the event. Public safety officials are concerned about the size of the larger-than-ever crowds. And some residents are planning a rally aimed at reducing the official length of Motorcycle Week.

It could be easy to forget that some called this the biggest event ever, drawing tens of thousands of motorcycle enthusiasts and millions of tourist dollars into the state.

Still, there are those who think the short-term gains don't make up for the longer-term economic pains for Laconia in general, and Weirs Beach resort in particular.

They say the area suffers for hosting Motorcycle Week, which now stretches over two prime weekends in June. Little construction has taken place in scruffy Weirs Beach in the last 20 years, even as neighboring towns such as Meredith and Wolfeboro have prospered by lining their waterfronts with elegant hotels and expensive gift shops.

Several days before the rally began, local residents and officials talked about the challenge.

“The Weirs has had problems in terms of Motorcycle Week in the past because people who built high-rent hotels and those kinds of facilities didn't want the motorcyclists tromping all through their lobby during the summer,” said Robert Smith, who has served on the city's planning and zoning boards.

“We don't have a family reputation there because of Motorcycle Week,” he added. “People don't go to Weirs Beach because they think that's where the motorcyclists go.”

Russ Thibeault of Applied Economic Research of Laconia called area a diamond in the rough.

“When you look at the setting – the boardwalk, the beach, the docks – it’s hard to find all that in one place,” he said. “You look at Meredith, which has done a great job with their waterfront… But they don’t have a beach. You can say the same thing for the other towns. The Weirs is definitely the most underdeveloped spot on the lake.”

Weirs Beach has been attracting people since the mid-1800s. At the height its popularity in the early 1950s, arcades, restaurants, hotels and a dancehall – featuring top name acts like the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra – filled Lakeside Avenue across from the water. An active seasonal surrounding neighborhood developed over about five square miles.

Soon afterwards, however, television and other cultural changes prompted a drop in visitors.

When the bikers began showing up in the 1960s, the local merchants welcomed them with open arms. Most still favor the Bike Weeks crowds, in spite of the fact that there have been occasional public safety incidents over the years.

Thibeault said the problem with development in Weirs Beach is not Motorcycle Week per se. Most of the prime real estate across from the beach – including land directly across from the dock of the Mount Washington cruise ship – is owned by a diverse group of people, many of who are perfectly happy to simply rent out space to vendors and bikers for the week, he said.

“They capitalize on the short season,” Thibeault said. “They've owned the property for years so they have no mortgages. Motorcycle Week creates a huge windfall for all the property owners.”

Mark Thurston of Thurston's Marina said many owners don't seem to care about making improvements to their properties. “I've been here for 32 years and I don't believe a color of paint has changed in the place,” he said.

Mayor Mark Fraser agreed, adding that the landowners could do better for the community and themselves if they looked past the fast buck.

“What I frequently hear is, there's nothing new in The Weirs, it's the same as it was when I was a kid, and it's not kept up,” he said. “There used to be some nice buildings there but over the years they've burned down and the areas around them have just been cleared for vendor space or parking.”

The landowners who probably hear the most criticism are Lobster Pound restaurant owners Lou Gaynor and Harvey Chernin, businessmen who moved to the Lakes Region about 20 years ago. Their eight-acre parcel on Rte. 3 is one of the most prominent Bike Week vendor compounds. It includes a huge beer tent, a “corporate alley” with a large space rented by Dodge, and the official headquarters of the Rally & Race Association.

Gaynor and Chernin said they’ve tried over the years to develop their land and have even talked with several business interests about putting up a hotel on the property. But they say they’ve had problems getting cooperation from other property owners and from former city officials.

And the duo is loath to consider any idea that would dampen the Bike Week crowds.

“Any businessman who would turn away two or three hundred thousand people, most of whom spend an average of something like $600 during their stay, is out of his mind,” Chernin said.

Thibeault said that he believes the city could play a bigger role in resolving the development situation.

“The city could step up and say we're losing too much money on this, we have to do something,” he said. “It could use eminent domain to take the properties, clear the undeveloped structures and put up new ones.”

But he admitted that it’s hard to imagine that happening given the limited-government approach popular here.

“Preferably it would be done by the private sector,” he said.

However it happened, city officials would love to see Weirs Beach develop the way other Winnipesaukee lakefront communities have in recent years.

Seasonal homes and businesses bring in big bucks and cost little in terms of services, always a boom in one of the few states that still has no income tax. In Meredith, the Hampshire Hospitality Holdings company alone will reportedly pay upwards of $275,000 in property taxes to the town for its hostelry, malls and other facilities.

Expensive waterfront homes and condominiums can also be a boom since seasonal residents or retirees, who draw little from town services, usually own them. The cost of waterfront property tends to be much higher in the surrounding areas, particularly Wolfeboro, than in Laconia.

That could soon change. The city recently gave approval to the development of the first stage of Akwa Soleil, a gated community of more than 170 single-family vacation homes starting at $600,000; construction has begun on roads on the Brickyard Mountain site – which overlooks Winnipesaukee – and model homes should be completed by the fall. Susan C. Bradley of Coldwell Banker Residential of Laconia said another 140 homes at slightly more modest prices – and an 18-hole golf course – are in the planning stages.

On the other side of the Weirs Channel Roche Realty has begun working on The Havens at the Summit, which could include as many as 70 new detached, year-round single-family homes. Lead sales agent Tom Drounin said his buyers are not much different than those who've been moving to the Granite State for years now.

“We’re talking to baby boomers who have been looking at all that New Hampshire offers in terms of quality of life,” he said. “There's such a demand as far as an influx of people coming to the state.”

It may be tough for some people to admit, but at least some of those new homeowners may have been at Motorcycle Week.

“Does Motorcycle Week have a negative impact on real estate for that week – in fact for most of June? Yeah, probably,” said Steve Weeks of Steve Weeks/Coldwell Banker Real Estate of Laconia. “But there's also a lot of upper income people that ride bikes as a hobby now. They come up to the area during the week, and they're coming back now and buying real estate.”