James Cullen called Crawford Bay, the site of the old Holiday Inn, Portsmouth’s “front door.”
People arrive to train at the Naval Hospital, and tourists arrive on cruise ships. And then there are the “Great Loopers,” the boaters navigating a giant 6,000-mile lap around the eastern half of the U.S. and parts of Canada.
“They all have to come right past this location,” said Cullen, a vice president at the Olde Towne Business Association. “So let’s put out the welcome mat for them.”
City officials have been talking about redeveloping the site on Portsmouth’s downtown waterfront since the early 2000s, when the city acquired and demolished the Holiday Inn. Previous attempts to give the site a makeover didn’t get far. Now, leadership has made the project a priority, said Brian Donahue, the city’s director of economic development…