Land Bank Unveils Plans For "The Creeks Overlook" Property

The Nantucket Land Bank on Tuesday unveiled plans for an East Creek Road property overlooking The Creeks that it purchased in 2022 for $4.8 million.

The 1-acre parcel located behind the Our Island Home facility was acquired by the Land Bank to enhance access to the waterfront for the public and the residents of the nursing home. The plans revealed yesterday include a viewing deck, boardwalk, and a connection to Our Island Home, along with restoration of the salt marsh and coastal bank on the property.

The draft plans were completed by the New York-based landscape architecture firm Scape. The company also completed a cost estimate for the project that came in at $4.35 million - nearly as much as the property itself - a price tag that the Land Bank Commission hopes to reduce by eliminating some of the proposed aspects of the site work.

Last October, the Land Bank secured approval from the Historic District Commission to demolish the existing 3,800-square-foot home on the property. The previous owner had begun the process of gutting and renovating the house before deciding to sell the property, so what remains is essentially a shell. The single-family dwelling was originally built in 1983.

In reviewing the demolition application, the members of the HDC raised questions about whether the structure could be moved rather than demolished, and if not, whether pieces of it could be salvaged for reuse instead of going to the landfill.

"Moving it is really not feasible at all," said architectural designer Ben Normand, who represented the Land Bank during the HDC hearing last year. "It's in a wetland, and the Conservation Commission does not want heavy machinery down there to move it out. The road it needs to come out of is quite steep and not conducive to moving a house...To move one that's gutted and been sitting in the harbor for a number of years unkept is a hard sell from a financial perspective."

The HDC members emphasized that regardless of those factors, the structure would still need to be advertised as available to move.

On Tuesday, the Land Bank's director of operational resources Rachael Freeman reviewed a series of staff recommendations to scale back the project and reduce its cost. That included such things as eliminating all proposed lighting and the granite curbing from the parking area, cutting back on plantings and the amount of area to be restored, tree plantings, and about a third of the boardwalk as originally proposed.

The commission voted unanimously to reduce the scale of the project in those areas and send Scape back to the drawing board to make those revisions to the design that it hopes will reduce the price tag.

Read the full presentation to the Land Bank by clicking here.