FILE PHOTO / TED AXELROD
JB Turner, president and general manager of Front Street, in 2017
Updated: 1 hour ago
With ownership change in the works, Front Street Shipyard focuses on what's next
FILE PHOTO / BILLY BLACK
The sale of Front Street Shipyard to Safe Harbors Marina is expected to close in January.
The sale of Front Street Shipyard in Belfast to Safe Harbor Marinas is expected to close in January.
“For my partners and me, this marks a bittersweet milestone, but we believe the time is right for this transition,” JB Turner, the shipyard’s president and general manager, wrote in a Nov. 18 letter to Belfast’s planning board and city council.
Front Street Shipyard is a boatbuilder and marina at 101, 65 and 45 Front St. on the Belfast waterfront. The ownership is listed as Dubba LLC and Building 6 LLC.
Safe Harbor Marinas is the largest marina and superyacht servicing business in the U.S.
Earlier this year, the shipyard’s owner, Dubba LLC, entered into a purchase and sale agreement with SH Marinas LLC.
The development is valued at $11.5 million as of 2025, according to a memo from Erin Herbig, Belfast’s city manager.
“This proposal is simply a change of ownership. No changes on the site, no changes to operations,” Bub Fournier, director of the city’s planning and codes department, told the planning board at a recent meeting.
Safe Harbor
Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Dallas, Safe Harbor has 138 properties across the U.S. and Puerto Rico, with $965.8 million in revenue in 2024 and serving over 39,000 members. Elsewhere in Maine, it owns marinas in Rockland, Harpswell and Kittery.
Safe Harbor Marinas is owned by Blackstone Infrastructure, which is part of Blackstone Inc. (NYSE: BX), which has more than $1 trillion in assets under management.
Cash purchase
Turner wrote that, in seeking the right group to take over the business, he and his partners “looked for a company with both the financial strength and technical capability to ensure a seamless transition for our customers, employees and community. The agreement we’ve arranged is a cash purchase — no commercial bank financing or mortgage — to a well-established business in the marina- and boatyard-management industry.”
He continued, “While there will inevitably be some internal operational changes following the sale, we expect very few public-facing changes…We have enjoyed a very productive relationship with the other harbor users, boatyards and the harbormaster, and we will continue to be an active, supportive part of the waterfront community.”
Turner said he will continue working full-time in his current position at Front Street Shipyard for at least the next three years, having agreed to sign a private employment agreement at the sale closing.
“This structure is both typical for a sale of this kind and essential for my partners and me, as we want the next owner to have key personnel fully prepared to oversee operations when I eventually retire,” he wrote.
Former sardine plant
The property was once a Stinson seafood packing plant that closed in 2001, Fournier said. In 2005, the city began controlling the defunct rail yard in the area. In 2006, renovations to a footbridge in the area were completed.
Dubba LLC took over the property in 2011 and developed Front Street Shipyard. The boatyard revitalized Belfast's working waterfront, tearing down derelict buildings and adding state-of-the-art facilities.
Today, the yard comprises approximately six acres between the waterfront and Front Street and offers boatbuilding, restoration, refits and marina services, taking on yachts as large as 200 feet.
Turner is a 2017 Mainebiz Next list honoree.
Maintain operations
Greg Glavin, Safe Harbor’s regional vice president, said his background includes running two boatyards for over 30 years in Massachusetts and working with Safe Harbors for nine years in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
“We’re buying Front Street to operate it as a boatyard and a shipyard,” Glavin told the planning board. “We have no plans for any presence of Safe Harbors other than myself to come up to work with JB.”
Safe Harbor plans to maintain the property as a working marina and boatyard and to invest an estimated $5 million within the first two years of ownership, to go toward the acquisition and maybe improvement to the buildings and equipment, Glavin said.
“I have ideas, JB has ideas,” Glavin said.
The company has the ability to fund annual operating costs, Glavin added.
Workforce retention
A member of the board said there’s some concern in the community about a larger company taking over a local business that, she said, “has been transformative to the community.”
Glavin said his company’s hands-off approach to local facilities was exemplified by Safe Harbor Rockland, where a public walkway and the property itself haven’t been modified.
“We want to be part of the community,” Glavin said.
Front Street shipyard’s existing staff will be retained, Glavin said.
“They’re all staying,” Glavin said. “When we first go through our integration, we’ll probably bring staff up for two or three weeks.” Those staffers will depart, he said. Glavin said he plans to come up periodically to consult with Turner, who will continue to run the facility.
In its review of the project, the board agreed Safe Harbor has the financial and technical capability for the project and forwarded it to the council for consideration.
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