The Fawcetts move (after the company was sold) was a significant loss to Annapolis. Historically, the building used to be a grocery store (so much for the quaint historical sense of Annapolis).

The City Market has other historical uses that hardly are worth celebrating -- it was a slave market in olden days. We remember it for a variety of tourist shops and questionable fast food places that health inspectors need to visit on training missions. Ahh, I actually used to eat things out of there and take vistors through it, myself.

Anyway, the US Sailboat nd Powerboat Shows aren't what they used to be. The world and the business are changing. The combination of quanity of sales, the internet, the traffic from actual buyers (vs. touristas) and the cost of renting, outfitting, and staffing vendor locations have conspired to make what we remember the shows to be just a thing of the past. I still spend a bunch of time there, but I'm just another shrinking class of "boaters".

In my mind, the challenges to planning and guiding the zoning and uses n Downtown Annapolis (as opposed to individual properties) is one critical mass which doesn't overwealm the available parking, kill the market with too much of the same thing, and maintain quality. The "shows" are important. Having an assisted living center down there, in the scheme of things is not to the bigger picture. Taking the parking and public access to the City Dock would be a mistake -- it allows the public to access the waterfront much more conveniently than (for example) parts of San Francisco's "pier" system.

As for the "sale" of the Shows to a group of investors -- I'm not sure what really good will come from that. The booths' costs and admission prices when coupled with reduced level of displayed boats and products really isn't moviing in the right direction.

So, after all I've wrtten, I guess I don't really know where all this will or should go. :^))))