In Hartford, the wheels are in motion to turn Waterford’s former tuberculosis sanatorium into a state-owned park, although officials concede cost could be an issue.

Since Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s surprise announcement that the state would take over the former Seaside Regional Center, instead of selling the property to a developer who had long expressed interest in building a five-star resort there, state bureaucracy has kept the plan moving, slowly but surely.

The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection hired a consulting firm to study whether the historic buildings on the former Seaside Regional Center property could be re-used. DEEP officials held public meetings in Waterford, released a master plan revealing their preference for a $200-a-night lodge on the property, and commissioned an environmental impact evaluation that will be publicly presented at another public hearing in Waterford on Monday night.

But as the state continues to operate without a budget and state legislators continue to argue over funding social services versus keeping taxes steady, some in state and local government question whether there will be enough money to pay for a nearly $40 million lodge-style hotel, let alone whether the political impetus for the state park will exist once Malloy leaves office next year.

Waterford First Selectman Daniel Steward is one of the first in line to question the future of Seaside as a public moneymaking entity.

He was always skeptical of the state park idea — learning about the plan at the same time the public did, at a hastily scheduled news conference on the Seaside grounds — and says he still sees selling the property to a private developer as the ideal option for Waterford.

According to the plan, the state would develop a public-private partnership that would mimic the management structure of state park lodges like the inn at Bear Mountain State Park in New York or the hotels and lodges in the National Parks system across the country.

State officials hired a consulting firm in 2015 to study the economic viability of such a property, which found that the local market could sustain a private, 100-room hotel at Seaside with an occupancy of about 60 percent at a daily rate of about $200, assuming it opened in 2020.

Last year, DEEP officials called that option its "preferred" plan.

The most recent state-commissioned report estimates up to 50,000 cars per year would drive to Seaside and construction would cost $39.5 million, which would be shared between the state and a hotel developer.

"Where is the funding for that, or what is the revenue stream for that?" Steward said last week.

"They're having a hard time staffing for Harkness," he said, referencing the effect that this year's budget crisis has had on regular operations at existing Connecticut state parks. Harkness is just down the shore from the Seaside property.

The environmental impact evaluation included cost and traffic estimates for each of several possible futures at Seaside, including the lodge proposal; an ecological park with a nature trail, wildlife viewing areas and art installations; and a passive recreation model featuring open lawns and tree groves.

The evaluation included a new possibility not addressed in the previously released master plan: a so-called hybrid plan, which would combine parts of the lodge and ecological park plans.

As plans move forward, DEEP officials said they are keeping an eye on the cost of the various options.

"We recognize that it has the potential to be very expensive," DEEP Deputy Commissioner Susan K. Whalen said in a recent interview. "I think that the cost will be a consideration as we move forward, in terms of how we ultimately decide to repurpose the buildings and add amenities to the property."

Revenue source questioned

Whalen said she still considers a public-private partnership the best way to preserve the buildings that make up the site of the former tuberculosis hospital designed by the renowned architect Cass Gilbert in the early 1930s — something many local residents and architectural historians have called a crucial part of whatever path the state takes with Seaside.

"We have to find that right balance between doing what the vast majority of people want, which is save the buildings, but at the same time have to be cost effective," she said.

But, she said, many of the costs of transforming the park into the envisioned privately owned hotel with public access to the Long Island Sound beach won't be cheap. 

"It all adds up," she added. "It may well be that those kinds of things are not something that we can continue to pursue."

Since Malloy's announcement set Seaside on a path for use as a state park, she said, it's up to DEEP staff to keep that plan moving forward.

But as more details have emerged about the cost of the preferred lodge plan, local elected officials have become increasingly skeptical.

"It is a mystery where the money would come from," state Rep. Kathleen McCarty said Wednesday, echoing Steward's doubt that the state legislature would approve state spending on the lodge-anchored park.

In a July 10 letter to Whalen, Steward was critical of the economic impact report, accusing the writers of downplaying the effect of tearing down the sanatorium buildings — part of the "passive ecological park" plan — and said the park envisioned in the report "overburdens the resource and is otherwise not appropriate."

Steward also detailed in his letter the decadeslong debate over the future of the property, which has included General Assembly support for the sale of the property to a private buyer, a protracted zoning dispute, multiple lawsuits and Malloy's surprise announcement in 2014 that the state would turn Seaside into a park, which many opponents of the idea have said was a move motivated by political interests.

Developer Mark Steiner was contracted with the state to develop the property for almost 15 years after first presenting an age-restricted condominium community in 1999. He requested changes to zoning three times, the last one rejected at a Planning and Zoning Commission meeting in 2014.

Steward said last week that while he doubts the Malloy administration will reverse course and decide to sell the property to a private buyer — Steiner or otherwise — he's hopeful Malloy's successor will reconsider a sale and let Steiner appeal the zoning rejection in court.

Differences of opinion

The neighbors who live in the residential areas around Seaside — now a slightly overgrown but peaceful piece of open land — have been of at least two minds about what should happen to the property.

A more vocal group, led at least symbolically by Seaside abutter Kathy Jacques, has pushed to keep Steiner's proposed development as small as possible, filing a lawsuit against the Planning and Zoning Commission in 2011 to protect the property's historical buildings and cheering Malloy on when he announced the plan for a state park.

Skeptical of an ever-changing message from state officials, she said a hotel wasn't what she had in mind when she celebrated the governor's decision.

"A park is a lot different from a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week, lights-on ... people on the beach all night long place," she said.

Dealing with the state as a local activist on the issue has been easier than trying to convince Steiner to build smaller, Jacques said.

"We're still kind of a little bit more in control," she said. "But it's a different set of problems."

Another group of neighbors openly has embraced the private development option, citing tax revenue for Waterford.

The economic impact evaluation reported that Seaside is assessed at a net worth of about $34 million, which under the town's 2016 mill rate would translate into $910,226 in annual taxes if it were privately owned.

On Friday, Stephen Percy, who lives near Seaside and also said he considers Mark Steiner a "friend of mine," said he still thinks a private option would be best.

"The development he proposed would be very useful there," he said. "It is good for the tax base and the town."

The state's lodge-park plan is similar to the Ocean House-like development that Steiner had proposed, but in the state's hands it deprived Waterford of the property taxes a private owner would pay.

"Sell it to Mr. Steiner, as his contract calls for, and let him go ahead and appear in front of the court and just do what he wants to do there," Percy said.

m.shanahan@theday.com