By Matthew Watling
OSWEGO – The City of Oswego is now wrapping up renovations to Wright’s Landing and has set a reopening date for June 1.
On Oct. 31, 2019, Mayor Billy Barlow announced that Wright’s Landing would undergo a $12.6 million renovation to upgrade the International Pier, as well as the marina thanks to the state’s Resiliency and Economic Development Initiative (REDI) grant. This project has been part of the city’s $16 million waterfront construction project.
Now, 18 months later, Barlow is still just as excited for the renovations and reopening in June. While COVID-19 struck a few months after the announcement, it never really delayed the plan.
The original idea was to close small portions of Wright’s Landing over the course of several years to eventually build up to a brand new facility. Instead, COVID-19 offered the city an opportunity to complete the work in just one season.
“COVID if anything actually helped construction at Wright’s Landing,” Barlow said. “We were already thinking of closing the marina due to construction and then COVID came along and made total sense to get into Wright’s Landing, shut it down for the year so we can get as much heavy equipment and construction in and out in one summer vs. piecemealing it over multiple boating seasons.”
Barlow said he sees this opportunity as an advantage for boaters as well. If the marina was open throughout construction, there would be undesirable dust, debris and noise pollution that would create an overwhelmingly negative experience. Being able to “rip the bandaid off,” as Barlow described, offers Oswego the opportunity to put Wright’s Landing in top shape come its reopening this summer, as COVID-19 restrictions have relaxed since last summer.
The construction and renovation to Wright’s Landing has been a long time coming for the City of Oswego. It has never had a “state of the art” boardwalk, as the original announcement called it and may not have even lasted many more summers given the current state of the property.
“Without the construction work, Wright’s Landing probably wouldn’t have been around 10 years from now. With the new water levels, the amount of erosion and the damage it was doing, the damage the flooding was doing on a yearly basis, the marina was getting washed away,” Barlow said. “We had facilities that were totally outdated … It was going to be impossible to go on like that. Luckily, we secured this funding to bring the marina up three feet in elevation, so we don’t need to worry about this ever again.”
Aside from lifting the marina, there are a myriad of upgrades to the site, especially public amenities. These improvements include fixing the docks and ramps to them, the boat launch and even the public showers and bathrooms – two critical elements that impact where boaters stop or park their boat for the entire season.
While the marina will be open June 1, there are still a few odds and ends that will need to be fixed up. These primarily include cosmetic work and cleaning up the site. Other upgrades that are set to be put in are fire pit seating areas, the trail to the riverbank and resurfacing the docks. All of these improvements will combine to make Oswego that much more attractive, thus helping the community.
“I think the marina makes Oswego a more viable option for boaters to have access to Lake Ontario, instead of driving from Fairhaven to Sandy Point,” Barlow said. “It just all adds to Oswego and trying to capitalize on our water front and make Oswego a place people actually want to stop and visit.”
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