As the most significant transformation of Cleveland’s lakefront in this generation looms, the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority wants you to believe this: Trust us — we know what we’re doing.
A fight for the hearts and minds of Greater Cleveland persists, as
port officials make a political push to relocate the languishing port
to a yet-to-be-built artificial landmass off East 55th Street. Like all
major developments, this one promises economic vibrancy and
opportunities for residents to shop, live and party on the coast. The
plan is endorsed by Mayor Frank Jackson, the Cleveland Foundation, and
a collection of suburban mayors and city development corporations.
So why are so many people calling it bullshit?
The massive project, with its technical and financial underpinnings,
requires a lot of time for even the brightest Clevelander to
understand, but one thing is certain — questioning the port
authority’s intentions is frowned upon. At a recent presentation of the
port’s plans before Cleveland city council, Adam Wasserman, the port
authority’s austere CEO, quipped that those who get their information
about his operation from “the press” likely think the $283,000-a-year
executive doesn’t know what he’s doing.
He’s right. In recent weeks, critics of the move — including
organized activists, independent watchdogs, boaters, editorial writers
and even would-be mayor Bill Patmon — have chimed in on
Wasserman’s grand scheme to drastically convert the waterfront. The
plan is an admitted gamble that banks on increased business at a port
suffering in the present-day economy. Opponents ask: What will the
impact be on the city’s eastern waterfront, with its state park,
popular marina and nature preserve? There are questions about the
port’s desire to invest millions on improvements at its current
location. The daily news of corruption in local government adds to
suspicions that something shady is afoot, especially when it comes to
the pot of gold: the 110-acre property the port plans to vacate —
the future site for a trendy lakefront district with shops, living
spaces, hotels and offices.
In other words, who and what can we believe? When asked about the
port’s inability to convince local naysayers, port communications
manager Luke Frazier stands firm: “People have long seen the port as
this mysterious entity. We’re not a cloak-and-dagger society. We’re
trying to provide the means for better economic growth.”
One vocal critic calls the port’s push nothing more than a slick
P.R. campaign. “They don’t have any figures; nobody has anything to
hang their hat on,” says Dominic LoGalbo, a retired transportation
executive and veteran boater. “It’s all speculation.”
The port’s corporate communications strategy, as presented via
PowerPoint to the port’s board in early September, outlines the
marketing plan with zero irony: “Produce all necessary tools so that
the region thinks what we are doing is valuable.” Those tools include
brochures, reports, a website and other means to win support from the
public.
Scene witnessed the port’s campaigning at a recent Cleveland
city-council caucus meeting. Reporters received shiny blue folders,
glossy tri-fold brochures and a copy of the day’s PowerPoint
presentation. The port’s new maritime director, Patrick Coyle, talked
about shipping trends, the desire of worldwide shippers to save time
and money, and the advantages of transporting goods via ship versus
rail and truck (the buzzword “green” was tossed around liberally). The
port, according to Coyle, is banking on the St. Lawrence Seaway
becoming a busy route for container shipping, a method of moving goods
that involves large, boxcar-like receptacles.
Coyle also presented a plan to reconfigure the existing port by
filling in one of the port’s slips and constructing a $10 million
manufacturing/warehouse building. When Ward 12 councilman Anthony
Brancatelli asked who will move into this building, port officials
admitted that the plan is “speculative.” A leaser shouldn’t be hard to
find, they assured him.
Next up was Wasserman. After his quip about the cynical media, he
outlined the port’s plan to move to a 200-acre, man-made peninsula to
be built north of the East 55th Marina. The port, Wasserman said, will
take advantage of the Army Corp of Engineers’ need to store the mud it
dredges up from our local ship channel. The port and the feds will
share the $300 million cost to build the peninsula. A figure of $700
million was thrown out as a possible final cost.
The new port will support a 1,000-acre swath of downtown smartly
presented as an “International Trade District.” This is about jobs and
the city’s economic future, officials said, and council members ate it
up.
These suits aren’t the only ones working with urgency. Days later,
Scene talked with a handful of people who say they can’t wrap
their brains around the port’s new plan. LoGalbo says Wasserman’s plan
is too vague, a backroom deal short on specifics, and he and others
point to the port’s recent history of curbing, or attempting to curb,
public input. But their main beef is the port’s decision to scrap a
lakefront plan designed in 2004 by a broad coalition of public entities
and citizen groups.
“The first study was done with the concern of bringing people to the
waterfront,” says LoGalbo. “This [plan] destroys a mile of waterfront
they can’t use.”
Where the port’s glossy promotional material presents a vague
picture, the opponents Scene met offered detailed maps and
reports that make their arguments easier to follow. They hunt down
every public record available on the matter. Their questions are
reasonable, and even with mountains of information, they don’t have the
answers they want. Why would the port support a landmass that closes
off a state park? How exactly is our relatively small port going to use
200 acres? Why force changes upon what’s viewed as the area’s best
marina?
There is skepticism that the port can flourish in the
container-shipping realm, and a 2008 study the port itself commissioned
supports these doubts. One obstacle is the winter closing of the St.
Lawrence Seaway. The closing “has historically been viewed as a huge
disadvantage,” according to the study. (Frazier admits that there is
“no guarantee” the container shipping plan will work out).
Bill Gruber, a lawyer and member of the Dike 14 Nature Preserve
Committee, fears that the dream of a comprehensive, people-friendly
waterfront is at risk. “People are thinking ‘We need jobs, we need
development, we have to make sacrifices,'” says Gruber. “But you don’t
sacrifice the good thing we have already, especially when you don’t
need to.”
This article appears in Oct 7-13, 2009.
Why are they wasting our time with meaningless speculations that really, really aren’t going to happen? Is the newsday so slow that we have to engage in “what ifs” to keep the masses excited? Come on now! We know that the city isn’t going to get permission to move any buildings to East Anywhere. There has to be years of talk and discussion and review and re-review and “devil’s advocate” role-playing first. Then we discuss the cost. And the process starts all over again! Come on, Cleveland. WAKE UP!!