Bidders Differ on Big Berth ; One Offers to Set Aside Funds for the Pier ‘Mega-Berth;’ the Other Says the Public Deserves Input.
By TOM BELL Staff WriterBy TOM BELL Staff Writer
The Portland City Council is giving two development teams until next Monday to explain how building a $6 million “mega-berth” to accommodate the world’s largest cruise ships would affect their proposals for the Maine State Pier.
The developers – who are competing for the right to build on the pier – gave strikingly different answers at the council’s workshop meeting Monday.
Officials from Ocean Properties offered to put $6 million in an escrow account to be used for the mega-berth if the council picks the company for the project and decides that a mega-berth must be part of it.
“We’re putting the money up front,” said Tom Walsh, the company’s president.
Bob Baldacci, the company’s vice president, told the council that the company would need to manage the the mega-berth to recover its investment.
Officials from the competing Olympia Cos. said adding a mega- berth to the project would change substantially its proposed design for the pier.
Company spokesman Jed Rathband said the original design was put together after meeting with community members, and it would be unfair to rework the plan in a matter of days without more public input.
“They are willing to throw down $6 million to secure the mega- berth,” he said of Ocean Properties, “but they don’t seem willing to exercise the patience to see how the process of deciding on the mega- berth should be developed. Hasty answers to hasty questions do not make good public policy.”
The mega-berth was never part of the original bid request that the city issued a year ago, but it emerged as a key issue last week when the council deadlocked on the question of which team should win the bid.
Councilor Ed Suslovic, who is the swing vote on the issue, believes that the upcoming generation of massive cruise ships will make the Maine State Pier obsolete.
Jeff Monroe, the city’s ports and transportation director, told the council that the 1,000-foot pier will not accommodate the vast majority of cruise ships now under construction. If the city does not build a mega-berth, he said, it will see far fewer cruise ships when the existing fleet is retired.
“The growth of these ships will exceed our ability to handle them, which will knock us out of the market,” he said, adding that a mega-berth would make it easier to market Portland to cruise ship lines.
Baldacci disagreed, saying after the meeting that the pier would be more attractive to cruise lines because ambulances and equipment vehicles could pull right up to vessels. That would not be possible on the mega-berth, which would be a 1,400-foot floating dock anchored in deep water near the Ocean Gateway terminal, which is now under construction.
The berth would be attached to the two concrete “dolphins” that once secured the floating dry dock owned by Bath Iron Works. It also would be attached to the 600-foot-long Ocean Gateway pier at the same angle that the dry dock was.
Without the mega-berth, the Ocean Gateway pier would be able to handle cruise ships about 800 feet long – not enough for many cruise ships that now call on Portland. The $20 million facility will be used mainly by The Cat, the high-speed ferry that goes to Nova Scotia.
The mega-berth originally was designed to be part of Phase 1 of the Ocean Gateway construction, but was never built because the bids received in 2005 exceeded the $4.1 million estimate. The berth already has been designed and permitted.
Councilor Jim Cloutier said there are many legal questions about getting a private developer involved in the Ocean Gateway project, which was funded by city and state tax dollars.
Staff Writer Tom Bell can be contacted at 791-6369 or at:
tbell@pressherald.com
[Sidebar]
THREE QUESTIONS
Here are three questions that must be addressed Monday by the two would-be developers of the Maine State Pier:
What level of investment in the construction of the mega-berth are you willing to consider?
If the mega-berth is developed, what effect, if any, does this have on your financial investments in the Maine State Pier?
If the mega-berth is developed, how does this affect your proposed development and business plan for the pier and the entire project?
THREE QUESTIONS
Here are three questions that must be addressed next Monday by the two would-be developers of the Maine State Pier:
1. What level of investment in the construction of the mega- berth are you willing to consider?
2. If the mega-berth is developed, what affect, if any, does this have on your financial investments in the Maine State Pier?
3. If the mega-berth is developed, how does this affect your proposed development and business plan for the pier and the entire project?
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