Archive: Business & Technology

Finger Lakes Marine Service celebrated its 65th anniversary a week ago last Wednesday (click here to see accompanying picture feature).  Owners Barry and Carrie Ford went before the Town Planning Board Monday to get permission to add small bathrooms to a couple of cabins that are part of an ongoing project to upgrade the marina, improve its already environmental-friendly footprint, plus respond to the changing boating business.  Ford told the Planning Board that boats are getting bigger because people are using them as lake-side cabins, and the economics make staying on a boat more affordable than cabins.

"The boat sizes in this marina are starting to get bigger because they're using them as cottages," Barry Ford said in an interview Tuesday. "They're not using them as boats.  You take a small cottage on the lake, it's 12 to 20 thousand dollars of taxes.  You can have a boat here for $3,500 a year.  The economics are stay here.  It won't be just tenants of the marina.  It will be potential buyers.  It will be people just like (next-door neighbor's lake shore cabin) -- he runs his cottage continuously down there, and it will be an income for the marina."

Ford's idea is to create a land-based experience that would be similar to what you would find in a boat: a two burner stove with a small refrigerator, a sink with running water and a composting toilet.  No shower - showers are available at one end of the marina office building.  Each cabin has its own boat slip included for the time of the rental.  Additionally, as more people want to stay overnight at marinas, the cabins would provide a more attractive alternative to RV, especially across the water from the town marina so that people there would have a nicer view.

"The boating industry has changed," Ford said. "We wanted to go with the cabins because I don't want to make it a trailer park.  We put them there because it was a nice place.  It will be advantageous for the park to look at.  There won't be campers in there."

	Fun Fact:  Myers Point was named for Andrew Myers, who settled on the point in 1792.  The point boasted a busy harbor as well as a shipyard, but by 1913 commercial traffic on Cayuga Lake had died down.

The marina was established by Ford's father Leon in 1954.  Known as 'Bo', he had worked as head caretaker at Taughannock Park.    It was a swamp, but Bo contacted to have it dug out, making it the only marina on Cayuga Lake that is inland from the original shore line.  This was five years before Myers Park, also a swamp at that time, was established.  Before the first year was up Bo was killed in a train-truck accident.  Ford's mother Louise took over the marina, making many improvements until she retired at the age of 95.  At that time he and his wife Carrie took over the business, and were immediately faced with improvements state and federal agencies insisted must be made.

"My mother did all she could possibly do, being a single woman and 90 years old," Ford said. "I commend her for all the stuff she did. When I walked in the Army Corps of Engineers and the DEC (NYS Department of Environmental Conservation) gave us X amount of time to bring this up to standards, and I had to do it.  The Corps of Engineers and DEC have been here and given us A+ rating on what we've done and how we've done it.  The boating industry named us the cleanest marina on Cayuga Lake.  That was a real plus in four and a half years."

It has been an ongoing project that has become a matter of pride to Ford.  He has spent $200,000 making the marina eco-friendly, another $60,000 taking out contaminated soil, and says there is probably another $300,000 of work to do to make it 100%.  Being on the lake makes it doubly important to pay attention to waste water treatment.  All but the main office is on a waste water system where waste water is routed to holding tanks that are periodically pumped out in much the same way septic tanks are pumped.  Water for sinks and showers on the property come from a well, and Ford told the Planning Board that the water goes through a five-stage chlorination routine, plus regular inspections as directed by the Tompkins County Health Department.

"Everything at the marina is eco-friendly.  Everything we do, from boat washing to sewage doesn't get near the lake," Ford says. "We have no gray water except for our office, and we'll modify that, it not next year, the year after.  Our initial water was cleaner (in testing) than the county water. But they still needed us to put it in.  It's all up to standards.  Everything has passed.  In fact, they said it was so good they dropped a lot of the testing we needed to do.  I may be old,  but I have young people following me.  The lake is such an income for not only here, but for the county and state.  If we don't preserve it and don't take care of it,,.  all my contracts say don't you dare dump anything into the lake or your contract is null and void."


Ford says the traditional boating industry has declined as boat owners view boating differently, which has been the biggest motivator to adapt his business.

"Boating was a big industry when we started, and it was a big industry until ten or 15 years ago," he said. "Boating has slowly declined.  The older folks do not or can not do the work, or can not afford it because they are on fixed incomes.  The younger ones don't want to do the work and don't want to spend that kind of money. So the industry is slowing down."

When Louise retired the marina had spaces for 230 boats.  That has been reduced to a current 192, and Ford projects that it will be further reduced next year.  He says the reason is that "boats have gotten pregnant," meaning that accommodations had to be made for bigger boats that are becoming more of the norm.

Being good neighbors to the Town as well as their actual neighbors is integral to the marina improvement plan.  The same instinct that prompted attractive cabins to avoid an unattractive trailer park led them to get permission to cut back a neighbor's bushes that were so overgrown that they were damaging boats as they entered the marina and causing issues for the exploding population that uses Myers Park.  They cleaned up the bushes at their own expense. 

"My customers were complaining continuously about their boats being scratched, because all those shrubs were all the way out on the road," he said.  "I got hold of the owner, got an agreement signed by her for us to cut it.  And now all the paperwork is being done so we can buy the property."

Another way the marina contributes to the community is by providing a space for the Tompkins County Sheriff's patrol boat, and selling any supplies for the boat at cost.  he says that many individual officers have their personal boats there as well, and a side effect of that is that there has been very little trouble at the marina.  The Sheriff's office, state troopers, coast guard auxiliary also conducted water-based events there.

Ford is complimentary of Town Recreation Supervisor Pat Tyrrell, who manages the town parks, saying they have a good working relationship when they have issues that impact both the park and the marina.  You might think that the town marina would be a bone of contention, but that is not the case.  Each year both marinas are filled to capacity, and each has a healthy waiting list of boaters eager to locate at this prime spot on the lake.

"I have no problems with the park and I hope they don't have any problems with us," he said.

Ford points out that what's good for his business is also good for the Town of Lansing and for Tompkins County, because of tax income and patronage of other local businesses that marina customers bring in.  With boat servicing and storage, the marina is a full time business that employs from 6 to 12 people, depending on the season.  He says and Carrie work seven days a week, and haven't had time to take a day off together in six months because it's such a demanding business.  yet they have made time to raise six children, who range in age between 51 and 11.  He hopes that one of his children will take over the business eventually, and that is another motivator to adapt to keep the marina a vital going concern, as well as to protect the environment and the lake.

"Many of the marinas are doing the same thing we're doing. We're having to diversify to keep the base people coming in," Ford says.  "We have some large houseboats coming in, and some large boats, which, for this marina, is a plus.  It's taken four years to get that type of customer to even think about coming here.  Our footprint here is about $1,200,000 brought into Tompkins County.  It's not great compared to Walmart, but it's an upper end small business that brings in a really decent footprint, plus serves the public."

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