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R.I. company looking to reopen Bridgeport shipyard

The clang and hustle of ship repair has returned to Bridgeport Harbor as a Rhode Island company is using the former Derecktor site to repair a U.S. Coast Guard patrol boat. But hope for a longer term arrangement has been pushed off course by the former tenant's bankruptcy.
J. Goodison and Co. of Rhode Island is repairing the U.S. Coast Guard patrol boat Sanibel and has the vessel, which carries a crew of 18, out of the water and on the land harbor side at 837 Seaview Ave.
"At the moment, it's a 60-day overhaul," said Jack Goodison, president of J. Goodison Co. "This class of patrol boat is one of our specialties. We've done eight or nine of them in the last 12 months."
The crew of the vessel are staying at area hotels and are working on the overhaul along with about 12 to 15 of Goodison's employees and about 10 local subcontractors, he said.
Goodison signed a temporary lease for the space, but his bid to take up a longer lease on the site of the former Derecktor Shipyards was accepted by the Bridgeport Port Authority in a competitive process conducted this summer.
"To us, it's a tremendous facility," Goodison said. "To have deep water access, close to New York City. It was an opportunity of a lifetime. It was something we didn't look for, but when we realized we could go down there we put a lot of effort into our proposal."
Goodison's company is strictly a repair and maintenance operation and does not do new construction, he said. About 80 percent of its business is government related, but it works on all kinds of vessels.
Until now, he's been doing dock-side repair and outsourced dry dock work, but if the Bridgeport yard works out, he will be doing that work himself.
Space in shipyards like Bridgeport isn't easy to come by as working waterfront has disappeared and been replaced by condominiums and other uses. He said so much space has been lost in the Northeast that it's possible vessels plying the waters around New York City and Long Island Sound might have to go to Virginia for repairs and maintenance.
While the Derecktor site is a dream come true for Goodison, its future is weighed down by Derecktor's legal issues.
The company operated in Bridgeport for about a decade building and repairing yachts, ferries, fishing and tug boats, but it filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection in January, just short of two years after its last bankruptcy. This filing does not affect Derecktor's Florida yard, which is expanding, but it does affect the leasing of the property in Bridgeport, which is owned by the Bridgeport Port Authority.
"We are in negotiations for a longer-range agreement," confirmed Elaine Ficarra, a spokeswoman for Mayor Bill Finch. But she said due to the ongoing legal issues, City Hall could not make any further comments on the matter.
As part of its request for proposals for new tenants, the BPA noted there is still a lot of Derecktor equipment on site that a new tenant would have to be respectful of until disposed of through the court process.
And Derecktor has paid rent to the Bridgeport Port Authority as recently as last month in order to access the site and its equipment.
A request for comment from Derecktor was not immediately returned Tuesday.
Source: CTpost