By Kevin Boneske , August 11th, 2022

Plans for Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding to construct a new, 65-foot-by-300-foot building along 3rd Avenue were approved Monday by Sturgeon Bay’s Aesthetic Design and Site Plan Review Board.

The company stated in its application seeking approval for the new building and related site work that the project is needed to add production capabilities and capacity at its Sturgeon Bay facility after it was awarded two contracts for liquefied natural gas barges and a U.S. Navy contract. The application further stated that Fincantieri plans to use the new building as a machine shop to service the entire Sturgeon Bay yard’s machining needs.

Aaron Bley, Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding’s facilities manager, said the building’s roof, which will have solar panels, will slant into the yard and be 34.5 feet high on the east side along 3rd Avenue and 32 feet on the west side.

“All the rain, runoff, goes directly into gutters, directly into the stormwater system,” he said.

Bley said the building’s base will be masonry with metal paneling on top, with an unlit Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding sign on the east side facing 3rd Avenue.

“I think it will be a drastic improvement from the current aesthetic situation,” he said.

City planner/zoning administrator Christopher Sullivan-Robinson said the project needed a variance because it will be built closer to 3rd Avenue and Florida Street than the required setbacks for property zoned Heavy Industrial (I-2).

“They do have an approval [from the Zoning Board of Appeals] to be as close as two feet to both of those ends,” he said. 

Because Sturgeon Bay Utilities (SBU) has a well station at the corner of 3rd Avenue and Florida Street, SBU and Fincantieri are working out a land swap, Sullivan-Robinson said, so that the company would have extra room to be closer to that corner.

“That hasn’t been formalized yet, and I want to make sure that’s on the record, that if you guys make an approval, that should be a condition, subject to formalizing that land swap,” he said.

Fincantieri proposed the land swap along Bay Shipbuilding’s north lot line to construct the building far enough north to keep it out of the FEMA floodplain.

In addition to the land swap being a condition of the project’s approval, Sullivan-Robinson said the Zoning Board of Appeals required Fincantieri’s beautification plan along 3rd Avenue to be extended north from Iowa Street to Florida Street with construction of the new building.

Another condition the site plan review board included for the project is adding vertical striping where the building faces 3rd Avenue, to break up the appearance of a blank wall.

Former mayor Thad Birmingham, a current site plan review board member, said he thought downspouts on the west side of the building made that side look better than what the plans the company submitted showed for the side facing 3rd Avenue.

Company officials at the meeting agreed to the change to add striping on the east side, north of the Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding sign on the wall.

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