Harley invited to downtown Laconia for Bike Week

Main Street said to be 'very upset' about plans for large exhibit near City Hall

It appears very likely that Harley-Davidson, Inc. will have a huge presence in downtown Laconia over much of Motorcycle Week 2007. Mayor Matt Lahey last night got City Council to unanimously and enthusiastically endorse the idea of inviting the company that is nearly synonymous with American motorcycles to take over the City Hall parking lot during the 84th annual rally, scheduled for June 9 through 17.

Lahey said that if the deal is finalized, Harley-Davidson will set up corporate exhibits and displays — as well as its bike demonstration-ride operation — in the parking lot between City Hall and the Post Office on Monday night and entertain visitors through Saturday. There will be no on-site sales effort for any kind of food, drink or merchandise and the operation will shut down each evening at 6 p.m.

Harley's corporate presence at Bike Week has been headquartered at the New Hampshire International Speedway in Loudon in recent years.

The announcement was not news to councilors, as most if not all of them have have been involved to some extent in the recruitment effort. "We started looking at this last year," said Councilor Bob Hamel (Ward 5). "It's a tremendous thing to have come to downtown . . . the restaurants, especially, should do real well."

Apparently, however, not everyone is excited about the idea. Before councilors agreed to provide a vote of confidence in the idea, City Manager Eileen Cabanel warned them that the Laconia Main Street program was "very, very unhappy" with the choice of the City Hall parking lot as a venue, preferring instead to have Harley located in the municipal parking lot that wraps around buildings near the northwest intersection of Main Street and Pleasant Street. Pleasant Street itself would have been closed as far north as Beacon Street West under that scenario.

The Main Street board of directors had endorsed that plan, Cabanel said.

Lahey said representatives of Harley-Davidson met most recently with a delegation of Laconia officials — including Main Street Executive Director Robby Grady and board member Kinney O'Rourke — just yesterday and both the City Hall parking lot and the Pleasant Street area were toured.

Harley's corporate office in Milwaukee indicated its strong preference for the City Hall lot, Cabanel said later, and when she informed Grady of that decision, Grady reacted very negatively.

Lahey said Harley-Davidson had concluded the Pleasant Street option "was too confined . . . too broken up" for their needs. "The City Hall lot is large and square enough," he added.

"I don't know why Main Street would be upset," Councilor Armand Bolduc responded after hearing Lahey and Cabanel's reports. "It will be tremendous".

"I tried to sell them on it (Pleasant Street)," Cabanel said after the meeting.

Lahey said Main Street's primary concern seemed to be the temporary loss of the 200 or so parking spaces in the City Hall lot. "But we're pretty confident there are other areas where we can make it up," he said before going on to mention making better use of the parking garage across Beacon Street East and the former F.W. Webb site on the other side of the Winnipesaukee River.

The mayor said the new owners of the F.W. Webb land have offered to allow people who are employed downtown to use their lot during Bike Week and that location could handle 70 cars. "We may need a little shuttling," he added.

Lahey said Harley-Davidson officials have left a very favorable impression on all people involved in the city's recruitment effort. "It's a very professional operation," he said. He was also very complimentary of Cabanel's role in putting things together. "Eileen did a tremendous job of promoting this," he said.

After the meeting, Cabanel said that while Harley-Davidson has not yet formally accepted Laconia's offer, they have notified the speedway they will not be returning to Loudon this year. She said Harley would pay not rent for the parking lot but is prepared to pick-up the cost of expenses the city will incur because of the exhibition, including he cost of traffic control.