A plan to use taxpayers’ money to turn a decaying former pump house and no-frills hunting and fishing lodge into a classy state-owned bed-and-breakfast inn got its start when Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight put his blessing on the project two years ago.
The State of North Carolina acquired the dilapidated and unsafe Lake Mattamuskeet Lodge, and the surrounding six acres in Hyde County, from the federal government in June 2006. Two years later, a state agency released a plan for the facility calling for it to become “operationally more like a bed and breakfast,” instead of the primitive facility it had been for years.
Now some local citizens say the state-subsidized hostelry is a threat to nearby businesses, especially inns and restaurants.
“I am concerned that the present plans for the lodge will put me in competition with the state for visitors to Hyde County,” said Mark Carawan, owner of a small motel, lodges, and cabins that can accommodate approximately 50 people. “I hope they consider some other alternatives that will benefit existing businesses and the county residents.”
Carawan’s cabins were completed last year and are located adjacent to the Mattamuskeet Lodge.
Basnight, whose district includes Hyde County, originated the idea to acquire the building and pushed its approval through the General Assembly. Some $2 million has been spent on the project so far, but Gov. Mike Easley halted further transfers after the state’s economic condition worsened last fall.
It is estimated that $3 million more is needed to stabilize the aging structure. Total renovation costs are estimated at $14 million.
“It is important to preserve and protect the building,” Basnight told Carolina Journal. “I don’t want a costly operation. I will seek more money from the Repair and Renovation Fund and then maybe stop the project for a while.”
The Department of Cultural Resources is managing the renovation. When complete, the facility will be turned over to the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. Cultural Resources was brought in for its expertise in historic preservation, but also because the WRC is a receipt-based agency and not eligible for money from the state’s Repair and Renovation Fund.
Cultural Resources Director of Capital Projects Mark Cooney said legislative leaders approved $6.5 million in initial funding to come from the Repair and Renovation Fund.
The WRC paid $13,500 to researchers at North Carolina State University to develop a plan for the site. The study released in September and titled “Business Management and Tourism Study prepared for the Wildlife Resources Commission,” was authored by Carol Kline, Jane Anderson, and Jessica Carr of the NCSU Tourism Extension program.
(Click this link to access a pdf file of the study. This link accesses a pdf file of the study’s appendix.)
The study said a restaurant and lodging should be part of the facility. Kline, now a professor at N.C. Central University, did not respond to several phone messages from a CJ reporter seeking more information on the study. CJ was unable to locate the other two authors.
“It is slated to reopen in 2010 as a lodge, meeting site and museum, nestled, just as always, along the picturesque shore of Lake Mattamuskeet in Hyde County,” states a page on the WRC Web site.
The study authors credit the project to Basnight’s efforts on its behalf. “Mattamuskeet Lodge sat unused for seven years until the North Carolina General Assembly, under the leadership of Senator Marc Basnight, accepted the transfer of Mattamuskeet Lodge into state ownership and subsequently appropriated funds to begin the restoration,” the authors of the report wrote.
Local concerns
After WRC Director Gordon Myers presented the project to a recent meeting of the Hyde County Chamber of Commerce, attended by a CJ reporter, several attendees raised concerns about the state competing with private businesses.
Hyde County Manager Carl Classen told CJ several citizens have expressed their concerns to him about the state operating a restaurant and lodge. “There are people that have made investments in property locally and see this as some competition,” he said. But he also said there are citizens that have expressed their support for the project.
When told about Carawan’s concerns, Basnight told CJ, “His operation is not like a lodge. There is no comparison. It would attract a different group of people. To me lodge would enhance the operation of other lodging and restaurants in the area.”
The proposed plan
The existing 23,000-square-foot building, according to the study, will be renovated into a 14-bedroom lodge with a restaurant and meeting rooms that is “operationally more like a bed and breakfast.”
The facilities also will include “an environmental education teaching lab, a self-help kitchenette and laundry services, interpretive exhibits depicting the role of the Lodge in county history, a reception area and gift shop, staff offices, equipment storage, a gun safe, outside gathering spaces, over six acres of grounds and walkways and various scenic vista observation points.”
The study assumes the lodge staff would be WRC employees, but it did allow for the possibility of WRC contracting with a management company or an established nonprofit organization.
Among the envisioned 17 full-time and 27 part-time employees, the staffing plan includes a general manager, hotel manager, assistant hotel manager, marketing manager, executive chef, and two sous chefs.
The study suggested a goal of 500 overnight guests during the lodge’s first year of operation, a goal that would be exceeded if the lodge attracted only one couple per night for 365 days a year.
Is the plan a ‘draft’?
Basnight insisted that the study recommending an upscale lodge was only a draft, though there is no indication of that anywhere in the document.
“We don’t know if a lodge is best, but it should be one of the options,” he said. Even though state funds are being used to repair and renovate the building, he said he doesn’t think that the state should run the facility. If it becomes a lodge, he said, the state should let a private management company run it.
WRC Director Myers also maintains the study is a draft. “Once the project planning and associated final programming is completed, the design team will prepare a detailed cost estimate that will be submitted to the State Construction Office for review,” he said.
When asked why the study considered only one alternative for the use of the property, Myers said he considered analyzing other alternatives but chose not to because it would have increased the scope and cost of the study.
He said the most critical task at hand is to stabilize the structure, but the project planning is an ongoing process. He said the WRC will make the final decision on the exact use of the property. The governor appoints 11 of the 19 commission members. The House speaker and Senate president pro tem each appoint four.
History
The old lodge building sits near the south shore of Lake Mattamuskeet, a 40,000-acre lake that is 18 miles long, seven miles wide, and averages only two feet deep. The largest natural lake in North Carolina, it makes up the bulk of the 50,000-acre Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge managed by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
A private company originally built the facility in 1914 as a pumping station to drain Lake Mattamuskeet for agricultural use. The lake was actually pumped dry three times, but the draining process proved too costly, and the pumping operation ended in 1933. That year the 50,000-acre site was sold to the federal government for the creation of the Lake Mattamuskeet Migratory Bird Refuge.
The Civilian Conservation Corps remodeled the pump house into a lodge and the old smokestack into an observation tower. The lodge served hunters and anglers until 1972, when Canada goose hunting became illegal within the refuge. The lodging operation ended in 1974, but the building was still used for occasional special events until 1996. It was placed on the National Historic Register in 1980. In 2000 the building was declared structurally unsound and closed to the public.
Law change needed
The Umstead Act is the state law that, under most circumstances, prohibits government units from competing with private sector entities.
The act specifically states that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources “shall not construct, maintain, operate or lease a hotel or tourist inn in any park over which it has jurisdiction.” WRC is administratively housed under DENR. The study authors understood the existing law was a hurdle to their plan for a restaurant and lodging.
“The WRC should approach Senator Basnight about amending the Umstead Act to ensure that the Lodge can operate successfully, legally and appropriately,” the authors wrote.
Don Carrington is executive editor of Carolina Journal.