Spanning across several acres of a massive Kent Island warehouse, the concrete model showed the bay in miniature, with a few inches of water filling the bay and its rivers. It was designed as a means to test what would happen to the bay under various conditions.
But almost as quickly as the bay model opened, science and funding sources moved on.
By 1981, experiments with the model had halted and by 1984, the model was mothballed.
In all of those intervening years, there's been proposal after proposal for what to do with the site.
It's been used for storage by the National Security Agency and a book company. It almost became a shrimp farm. And it was proposed to host a boat storage business, marine trades school and a classic boats museum.
But nothing has ever come to fruition at the site.
Now, Queen Anne's County and the state are taking another whack at developing the bay model site.
The latest proposal is for two industrial companies and an 80,000-square-foot sports complex to move onto part of the site. The rest may be developed later.
"It's one of those rare win-wins in government, where it's going to be beneficial to us and it's going to create a pretty significant commercial tax base," said Gregg Todd, chief operating officer for the Queen Anne's County government.
Long history
The Chesapeake Bay Hydraulic Model had its beginnings in the 1960s, when then-U.S. Rep. Rogers C.B. Morton pushed for the federal government to approve and pay for a miniature model of the bay to study the estuary.
The state sold the 52-acre site of the former Chesapeake Bay ferry terminal at Matapeake to the federal government for $10.
While the model showed the bay in miniature, it was vast, covering 9 acres of land inside a giant warehouse. At one end of the building was the mouth of the Susquehanna River, and at the other end was Norfolk, where the bay spills out into the Atlantic Ocean.
A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers brochure from the 1970s explains that the model would be used for studying "navigation, fisheries, flood control, control of noxious weeds, water pollution, water quality control, beach erosion and recreation."
At a dedication ceremony in 1976, Morton called the model "a facility that will enhance the quality of life in this area for years to come."
But nearly as soon as tests started in 1977, the bay model had problems, according to newspaper articles at the time.
Insulation fell from the ceiling, disrupting the water in the model. Then the concrete started cracking, throwing off scientific efforts.
Later, there were funding problems and by the time experiments were halted in 1981, few of the planned studies had been completed. At the time, officials began to publicly acknowledge that computers soon would be able to do much of the same work as the physical model, but at a lower cost.
The site was closed for good in 1984.
For awhile, the National Security Agency used the property for storage. And then it sat empty. By 1993, the feds gave the property back to the state.
Next came an ill-fated proposal for a private investor to open a shrimp farm on the site in 1994. The shrimp farm ran into legal and financial problems and never got off the ground.
In 1996, Queen Anne's County took over the site and leased it for paper storage.
Then in 2002, the book company that stored paper moved out and the county struck a deal for R.W. Marsh Enterprises to open the Matapeake Maritime Center at the site, including a boat warehouse, boat repair business and marine trade school.
But that proposal, too, went in fits and starts and eventually dissolved in late 2007 or early 2008. Rob Marsh, the boat dealer behind the project, declined to comment.
Todd, from Queen Anne's County, would only say that "a number of reasons" caused that project to fail.
Latest proposal
That brings the bay model site to the present.
The latest proposal is for the county, which owns the land, to sell it off for private development.
The project is split into two phases, with the first phase including three parcels totalling 21 acres.
One lot will be sold to Miltec, a manufacturing company that's currently located in the Chesapeake Bay Business Park on the other site of Route 50.
The other two lots will be sold to Linden Development, which will bring in NRL & Associates, another Kent Island manufacturing company, and a sports complex.
The total sales prices for Phase One will be about $1.1 million, Todd said.
Phase Two will happen at an undetermined point in the future. The rest of the site, about 31 acres, can't be developed yet because the sewer pipes are too small to handle the volume of sewage that would be generated by more buildings, Todd said.
But there are more hurdles to go before the sales can be finalized.
First, the county must tear down what remains of the old bay model building.
It's really just a shell of a building, with no walls, holes in the roof and a dirt floor. It's surrounded by weeds, grasses and cattails that grow waist-high in some parts.
More importantly, the state must approve the project.
When the state turned the land over to Queen Anne's County, the deal included a 20 percent share of any profits for the state. The state also reserved the right to OK any development at the site.
Todd said the proposal will go before the state Board of Public Works - comprised of the governor, treasurer and comptroller - in October.
Queen Anne's County is facing a Dec. 31 deadline set by the state to make the site profitable. The county will ask for a five-year extension on that deadline for the Phase Two section of the property.
Also, the county will ask the state to take its 20 percent share and "reinvest" it in the site, in the form of helping pay for infrastructure, Todd said.
Todd said the county is excited and hopeful that, once and for all, the bay model site is turned into something positive.
"I think in the past the county has not done a very good job of vetting the businesses to go in there," Todd said. "What's so exciting about this is both Miltec and NRL are existing businesses in the county. They're looking to grow. They're invested in the community. We're excited about getting known entities in there."
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