Sailing ahead on the waterfront

EAST BOSTON -- The vacant lots are dotted with trash and old cups from a nearby McDonald's. Wooden piers are rotted, and the no-trespassing signs and rusty fences do little to keep out the homeless and other wanderers.

But this waterfront land was once the center of Boston's ship building industry. After years of dereliction, the City of Boston is soliciting developers to build a bustling area of shops, homes, and boat slips.

"We think there's a lot of potential there," said Sarah Barnat , project manager at Trinity Financial Inc. , one of three firms seeking the development rights.

The three lots, 14 acres in all, along the East Boston waterfront sit on the former shipyard of Donald McKay , who was considered America's premier clipper ship builder in the mid-1800s.

In 1851, the famed Flying Cloud, which traveled from New York to San Francisco in 89 days, was built here. Other ships, dubbed "greyhounds of the sea" for their speed, include the Washington Irving, Daniel Webster, and Anglo-Saxon.

"McKay's importance to Boston's history was profound," said Henry Lachance , a founding member of the Boston Maritime History Committee. "Much of the town's wealth came from shipping and shipbuilding."

The ships brought fame and prosperity to Boston, but the industry declined with the rise of the steam engines, which were more reliable because they did not depend on wind for power. McKay went broke and moved to Hamilton , where he died, according to Lachance, who is moving into McKay's former East Boston home on White Street to begin a two-year project to complete paintings of a dozen clipper ships.

Vacant since the 1960s, it's hard to envision the property once bustled with activity. For a while the land was used to store coal and lumber, which left environmental problems that any developer will have to clean up. The city acquired it in 1977 during a foreclosure.

Yet much of East Boston is being spruced up, as property owners and developers are drawn by its lower-cost stock, proximity to downtown, and harborfront. Just blocks away, a 426-unit housing project called Maverick Landing is nearing completion, on the site of a former public housing complex.

"There is a lot of pent-up demand for seeing the waterfront parcels developed and not leaving them languishing as old industrial sites," said Barnat, an East Boston resident, whose firm is developing Maverick Landing.

Indeed the Border Street lots have views of the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge to the left, the Tobin Bridge to the right, and Bunker Hill Monument ahead. It is also near Liberty Plaza and the Maverick station on the Blue Line .

"It's been in disrepair for some time," said Alan Perrault , who submitted a proposal from Border Street Partners. "But it has a number of things going for it, like nice vistas to Charlestown, and it's close to [Route] 1A."

Three developers responded to the city's request for a mixed-use project that would contain a maritime component. Each has offered around $2 million for the properties, and made these proposals :