Saybrook Point's Vote Passed in March. The Walking Trail Isn't Waiting On It.

Last Saturday, runners lined up at Fort Saybrook Monument Park for the 17th running of the Saybrook Point 5K, looped past the mini golf course, skirted Gardiner's Landing, and finished back where the Connecticut River meets Long Island Sound. Nothing about that morning looked like a construction zone. If you didn't already know it, you'd have no reason to think this stretch of waterfront had just spent four months tangled in a due diligence period following one of the more closely watched town votes in years.

That's the thing about Saybrook Point right now. Ask most residents what happened after the March 31 referendum and you'll get some version of "oh, that passed, right?" It did. But the vote didn't finish anything. It started a clock, and that clock ran out quietly in late July with no press conference and no ribbon. Meanwhile, a completely separate project, funded a different way and moving on its own schedule, has been advancing the whole time. Most people talking about "the Saybrook Point thing" are actually talking about two different things, and mixing them up is why the story feels stalled when parts of it aren't stalled at all.

What the March Vote Actually Decided

The referendum question wasn't about a park design. It was about a property trade. Old Saybrook voters were asked whether the town should acquire the 2.2-acre former Dock & Dine site at 145 College Street, the property that sat vacant and increasingly blighted for more than a decade after Dock & Dine was destroyed in Superstorm Sandy. In exchange, restaurateur Jon Kodama would take over the Vicki Duffy Pavilion, the building the town has owned since 1989 and that has hosted the site's food service on and off since the Sand Bar operated there from 1966 to 1989.

The terms are specific: Kodama leases the pavilion and the land under it for $1 a year, with a 25-year term and three renewal options, and converts it back into a year-round casual restaurant. The stated intent is to turn the old Dock & Dine parcel into open, unblighted public space.

Voters said yes, decisively. The tally was 1,993 in favor to 726 against, a margin north of 3 to 1. WFSB reported that First Selectman Carl Fortuna called it a "great turnout" and told residents the town would "engage the public on what happens next." That phrasing matters more than it sounds like it should.

The Clock No One Announced

The Town of Old Saybrook says approval triggered a 120-day due diligence period for both the town and Kodama, a window to work through building requirements and finalize the legal mechanics of the swap before anything transfers. Count 120 days from March 31 and you land on roughly July 29. That date has come and gone with no public announcement of a completed deed exchange, which tracks with what town officials said from the start: once due diligence wraps and deeds change hands, the actual design work for the new park begins as a public process, not before.

In practical terms, that means anyone expecting a rendering of the new waterfront park by now is going to be disappointed, not because the project stalled, but because a rendering was never the next step. The town has said explicitly that no design has been finalized and that public input will shape whatever comes next, including one floated concept for a 32-by-86-foot open-air pavilion that could hold more than 100 people. Floated is the operative word. Nothing there is locked in.

There's also a structural reason the town isn't rushing to rebuild anything grand on that parcel. The former Dock & Dine site sits in a FEMA VE flood zone, the same designation that made rebuilding the original restaurant cost-prohibitive after Sandy. The land swap didn't make the flood exposure disappear.

The Trail That Was Never Part of the Vote

Here's the part that gets lost. While the property swap sat in due diligence, the town had already secured a separate DEEP Connecticut Recreational Trails Grant, and that grant isn't waiting on anyone's referendum outcome. It funds two things: repair of the deteriorating seawall that runs along the waterfront in front of the old Dock & Dine property, and a new ADA-accessible connector trail linking Fort Saybrook Monument Park and the remains of the old Connecticut Valley Railroad turnaround to Gardiner's Landing Park. Combined with the walkway that already runs from Gardiner's Landing past Saybrook Point Resort & Marina to the state-owned causeway on Route 154, the finished product is a continuous mile of pedestrian access along water that, until now, has only ever come in disconnected pieces.

Two tracks, two timelines, two funding sources:

• The property swap: town-and-owner negotiation, subject to a due diligence period that closed in late July, followed by a public design process with no fixed start date
• The trail and seawall repair: already grant-funded, tied to the DEEP Recreational Trails program, moving forward on the town's own construction schedule regardless of how the swap's design phase unfolds

If you've been waiting to hear "it's finished" before you go check it out, you might be waiting on the wrong project. The walkable mile is the one actually under construction. The park redesign is the one still waiting on public meetings that haven't been scheduled yet.

What You'll Actually Notice This Year

Parking and access at the Point aren't changing in the ways some residents feared during the debate. The town has said visitors will still be able to park near the mini golf course and take in the same easterly water views toward Old Lyme that they always have. That course alone draws an estimated 35,000 to 40,000 players a year, money that goes back into Parks and Recreation maintenance across town, so there was never much appetite to disrupt it.

What's likely to change first is the seawall work in front of the old restaurant parcel, since that repair has to happen before the walkway extension can be completed safely. After that comes the connector trail linking Fort Saybrook Monument Park to Gardiner's Landing, the piece that finally makes the whole Point walkable end to end without backtracking to a parking lot.

The restaurant timeline runs on its own clock too. Town officials have said that once the necessary approvals are in place, they expect a working restaurant roughly six months later. For residents who use the pavilion, that timeline isn't abstract. The pavilion hosts baby showers, retirement parties, and family reunions on a regular basis, and until the restaurant lease is finalized, none of that has a confirmed home.

None of this requires the Dock & Dine parcel's future to be settled. The mile of waterfront walking that's actually being built right now was never contingent on that outcome, and residents circling the Point on foot this fall are going to notice new pavement and a repaired seawall well before anyone unveils a final park design.

Saybrook Point has never needed a ballot measure to be busy. People show up there year-round, in every kind of weather, to fish, walk dogs, eat ice cream, or just sit and look at where the river gives way to the Sound. What the March vote and the trail grant are doing, on two separate schedules, is making sure that habit gets easier and more connected instead of staying stitched together out of separate parking lots. Watch the seawall this fall. That's the part actually moving.

If you're weighing what a project like this means for property values or timing a move along the Old Saybrook shoreline, Lisa Fekete tracks these town-level shifts as part of everyday client conversations, not just headline moments. Schedule Your Complimentary Consultation to talk through what's changing at the Point and what it could mean for your own plans.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.