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Tampa port officials: Channelside Drive changes would snarl cruise traffic

Port Tampa Bay commissioners asked Mayor Jane Castor to halt a project that's been in the works since 2018.
 
In this Jan. 12, 2017 file photo, passengers wait for rides outside Cruise Terminal 3 after disembarking the Carnival Paradise, operated by Carnival Cruise Line, at Port Tampa Bay.
In this Jan. 12, 2017 file photo, passengers wait for rides outside Cruise Terminal 3 after disembarking the Carnival Paradise, operated by Carnival Cruise Line, at Port Tampa Bay. [ BORCHUCK, JAMES | Tampa Bay Times ]
Published Aug. 18, 2020

Traffic along Tampa’s Channelside Drive can be a headache on days when cruise ships come in. If the city moves ahead with plans to narrow the street from four lanes to two, some Port Tampa Bay officials believe it could get even worse.

A rift between the city and port reopened at Tuesday’s Port Tampa Bay board meeting, when commissioner Patrick Allman “blindsided” mayor and fellow commissioner Jane Castor, as he put it, by asking her to place a moratorium on the project — which is not only underway, but has been up for public discussion since 2018.

The project would narrow Channelside to one lane in each direction from Kennedy Boulevard to the roundabout near the Florida Aquarium, and add medians and pedestrian-friendly spaces. Port officials have expressed concerns about its effects on cruise terminal access, commissioning their own spring study that found a lane reduction would result in added congestion.

“My concern is that this work is being rushed to construction without any input from major stakeholders, of which the port and its cruise business is primary,” Allman said.

The city and even Port Tampa Bay officials said that’s not the case; port CEO Paul Anderson and vice president of engineering Bruce Laurion said they’ve been consulting with the city for months.

“This isn’t being done with a lack of transparency,” Castor said. The port’s cruise business, she said, “is a vital, vital economic driver for the city of Tampa, and we’re not going to do anything to harm the port.”

Still, several port board members, including Sandra Murman and chairman Steven Swindal, said they shared Allman’s concerns.

“The traffic is very bad the way it is when there are cruise ships in there,” Swindal said. “I can’t even fathom it being one lane. It just would cripple the cruises and be unpalatable. I don’t know who came up with the idea, but when we get the cruise business back, they can come out here and see what we’re talking about.”

Allman asked Castor to press pause on the project until the city could lay out its plans at the port’s next board meeting. Castor said she wouldn’t delay work that’s already started, but that the city would provide a more detailed report in September.

“I know you’re being blindsided, and I apologize,” Allman told her. “But my concern was, as I looked out yesterday and saw the road being striped, that this thing was just going to go down without us having an opportunity for input.”

“Well,” Castor said, “that’s not going to happen.”

Vik Bhide, the city’s mobility director, later said he and Castor were surprised by the timing of the board members’ objections.

“Honestly, I felt we were in good shape,” he said. “We’ve reached out to the community, we’ve reached out to stakeholders, we’ve let them study it themselves, and arrived at the design we’ve arrived at. We feel like we’ve done our due diligence, and we’re comfortable with our design here.”

The port’s cruise business has been shut down during the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in a nearly 50 percent drop in projected cruise ship and passenger traffic during the first 10 months of this fiscal year, from October through July. That contributed to a 10.9 percent revenue drop from their projected budget.

Helping offset cruise losses have been upticks in other types of port business. At Tuesday’s meeting, port officials highlighted a new lease agreement with Bertram Yachts, which in 2016 moved its primary boat-building operation from Miami to a facility just south of Gandy Boulevard.

Bertram will build a $25 million shipbuilding facility on 25 acres on Pendola Point, off the intersection of U.S. 41 and Madison Avenue, enabling it to expand its line of boats, and increase production from 11 boats in 2020 to 255 by 2024.

Between the new facility and the investment in new products, Bertram CEO Mark Paulhus estimated the economic impact of the new facility to be around $40 million. He expected Bertram’s workforce to expand from 55 hourly and 17 salaried workers to 240 and 35, respectively, in 2023.

“It’s a marquee name internationally,” Swindal said. “It’s a great day for those of us in the sport fishing business to have a major player in our own backyard.”