The site of the former Shooter’s Waterfront Café is for sale. The state is asking $3.5 million for the property.

The Providence Journal / Ruben W. Perez

PROVIDENCE — The state will put on the market, with an asking price of $3.5 million, the bulk of the former site of Shooter’s Waterfront Cafe, the popular but notorious Fox Point waterfront nightclub built in 1990 that today is badly deteriorated and heavily vandalized.

Proceeds from the sale of the property, which the Department of Transportation took in 2000 by eminent domain for the Iway project, would go to finance the next parts of the Route 195 relocation.

But area advocacy groups and elected officials are asking that the “crown jewel” of the city’s waterfront remain in the public domain.

“This is the most beautiful view of Narragansett Bay that we have,” said Sen. Rhoda E. Perry, D-Providence.

The state paid $4.7 million in compensation for the three-acre site. Just over a third of the property was needed for the new Iway infrastructure; the remainder was needed only temporarily for use as a staging area for the project.

The state’s asking price is based on an appraisal in April.

“We feel that we have a good appraisal,” said Daniel Clarke, principal property management officer at the DOT. “It’s a very sellable property that would draw a good price in any type of market, and we don’t want to incur any further liabilities and we have to continue to finance the Iway project.”

The State Properties Committee yesterday authorized the DOT to dispose of the building and land, at 25 India St.

Committee chairman Kevin Flynn said the state is obligated to put the property up for sale because 80 percent of the purchasing cost was covered with federal money, on the condition that whatever was left over be sold at market value to help pay for the highway project.

Flynn says the committee’s approval allows the DOT to draft a request for proposals so that the property can be advertised for a public auction. The committee will review the RFP and, more important, have a say over whether the state moves forward with the sale. A purchaser would have to honor easements that ensure public access to the waterfront, he added.

“Some compensation needs to be paid back to [the Federal Highway Administration], and it’s up to this committee to determine what that is,” he said.

Since the property was taken by eminent domain, Michael C. Kent, whose Chestnut Street Associates operated the nightclub under the Bootlegger’s moniker before the state took it, has the right of first refusal, the option to match the offer of the highest bidder. The city would be next in line to exercise that option.

The state has held off selling the property for nearly one year at the request of the city, which hosted a series of neighborhood meetings, called charettes, to discuss the property and other local planning, development, and zoning issues in Fox Point.

No representative of Mayor David N. Cicilline’s administration attended yesterday’s meeting of the State Properties Committee. But Thomas Deller, the city’s director of planning, said Monday the city has given the state the go-ahead to move forward with the first steps in a potential sale. (Cicilline attended U.S. Sen. Jack Reed’s swearing-in ceremony in Washington yesterday and was unavailable for comment.)

Based on the charette process, Deller said the city determined that there will be no change of zoning to the property, which is currently zoned Waterfront-2, a mixed-use designation allowing residential, commercial and light industrial development.

Fox Point residents, other East Side neighborhood associations, and local advocacy groups, however, want the site, which abuts the city-owned India Point Park, to be developed for public recreation.

“There is a need to create an attraction there,” said Arria Bilodeau, cochairwoman of the Head of the Bay Gateway, an advocacy group. “This is an opportunity to add a tourism draw to the state.”

Local elected representatives called on the committee to delay moving the sale forward. “Waiting a month or so to see what actions Congress takes with a federal stimulus package makes sense,” said Rep. David A. Segal, D-Providence.

Any federal stimulus money probably would be allocated for new projects to create jobs, not to pay off debts from old projects, according to committee members.

Others at yesterday’s meeting said that allowing commercial development on the site would depress the value of the acreage that will be made available for development when the old stretch of Route 195 is torn down.

Shooter’s, opened by Joseph Cerilli in June 1990, was a major addition to the nightlife scene on the city’s Old Harbor, which at the time was centered, as it is today, on the Hot Club, Fish Co. and the Corliss Landing development near the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier.

Shooter’s, part of a national chain of casual waterfront dining and dancing venues, was in a three-story building that could accommodate nearly 1,600 patrons. The 25,000-square-foot complex featured dockside dining, a waterfront pool, bars inside and outside, a top-floor restaurant and a 90-slip marina. It cost $6 million to build.

But problems plagued the nightspot almost from the start.

The business changed hands after the first season of operation. There were licensing problems with the city and area bars and residents complained of the massive crowds that the club drew. Violence, including a 1993 killing in the club’s parking lot, was commonplace.

pmarcelo@projo.com