| Following Last Stand's
April 8 Neighborhood Information Forum on the Truman Waterfront, the
following in-depth editorial on the subject appeared in the April 12
Solares Hill, asking the obvious question: |
What's Taking So Long at Truman Waterfront?
The crowd that turned out for last week's Last
Stand forum on Truman Waterfront caught up on what has (or has
not) happened there since the environmental group first held a
forum on the waterfront half a decade ago.
It was standing-room-only on Wednesday afternoon at NOAA's Nancy
Foster Eco-Discovery Center, the center being one of the few
things that has happened at the waterfront. The day before the
forum, the Eco-center had its best day ever with 600 visitors.
And on March 20, Taste of Key West will hold its annual
extravaganza at Truman Waterfront.
But developments at the former Navy property seem otherwise to
have stalled in the public mind. There has been talk of
behind-the-scenes jostling for a piece of the park. Awareness is
growing about potential pollution problems at a site that was
cleaned up for industrial but not entirely for residential use.
The mayor is nowadays showing a peculiar animus toward the
Bahama Conch Community Land Trust's plans, which the public
blessed by referendum. And the city needs to have a
Comprehensive Plan in place before any permit can be issued for
the BCCLT development or for the assisted-living facility that's
planned for the property; fact is, the comp plan has been
allowed to slide and the city planner, Amy Kimball-Murley, is
now scrambling to get it done so the DCA can approve it and the
next steps be taken. Finally, there remains some uncertainty as
to the actual zoning for residential use at the waterfront.
Such is the back story lurking behind delays that led to the
forum on Wednesday. The 33.8 acres known as Truman Waterfront
were introduced to attendees by Doug Bradshaw, the city's port
project manager, in a PowerPoint presentation that described the
waterfront as a "great community park" with a "spectacular
setting and unique historical qualities." On the screen appeared
a list of 28 potential uses for the park, a preferred program
that includes affordable housing, a meeting center, harbor walk,
bike paths, jogging trails, restrooms and an "interactive water
feature."
There are a couple of Navy sites sitting in the middle of what
is now city property. Those two parcels plus the 6.2-acre BCCLT
site and the 4-acre assisted living site leave 23 acres to
fulfill the public call for total parkland at the waterfront.
The city is now working on an old Navy oval track to restore it
as a multi-use field (soccer especially). The city has a
$600,000 grant to install a roadway through the park to the
Outer Mole, and also planned is a new cruise-ship passenger
checkpoint at the Mole.
The one part of the city's waterfront plan that is most advanced
to date is a proposed marina, which will be the city's third
marina operation after Garrison Bight and the Key West Bight.
Two proposals are currently being considered by the city, both
very different.
One marina proposal would cost $14 million; the other, a joint
venture between the city and outside financial sources, would be
a much grander scheme costing $34 million and incorporating the
parkland. An independent economist is arriving in town next week
to review these two proposals for the city.
Speaking on behalf of the Bahama Conch Community Land Trust, its
director, Norma Jean Sawyer, said she was "excited about our
project." The BCCLT was a model land trust and part of a
national heritage land initiative. "We have funding available to
us," she said, which means "plenty of opportunity to make this a
success for the city."
The proposed project would be situated around a Petronia Street
entranceway to the waterfront, "blending in with Bahama
Village," described Sawyer, as "a focal point connecting where
African slaves landed and the Navy's role in saving them."
Which, she added, was what made it a world heritage site.
Centerpiece of the BCCLT development is to be a
17,000-square-foot cultural center and community building
designed by Bert Bender and his firm of "young architects"
(Sawyer's words).
The first phase of the development will include bocce courts and
picnic tables. The "flow" of architecture from Bahama Village
into the park will include one-bedroom and two-bedroom units
plus single-bedroom units for the elderly. Phase two would
involve a grand circle with more residential units and retail
space.
A slide of the architectural rendering showed a multi-Key West
skyline of every traditional style from New England to the
Caribbean. Into this environment, said Sawyer, would be injected
an organic food program of residential gardens that supplies the
development's own market place. "I have catch basins throughout
and a cistern for watering plants and we'll have community
gardens for growing our food and selling it too."
The BCCLT project is "a big project for the area and a big
project for the nation." With the residents being so involved in
their own community, "it will be a model to be replicated all
over the nation."
And it will be financed by tax credits kick-started by a $25,000
grant loan.
On behalf of the Florida Keys Assisted Care Coalition, Bookie
Henriquez gave a stentorian account of where things now stand
with the proposed assisted and independent living facility at
the waterfront. Bookie is chairman of a coalition that is
working, it proclaims, "so that more of us can stay in the Keys
and not have to move away as we age."
"The plan works," reported Henriquez. It depends on two
components. First is a 90-year lease for Utility Board and city
land, for $1 a year; the second is that subsidized units will
depend on the high-end units to underwrite the costs.
The community needs the facility, he said, because of the
demographics. There's been a nine-percent growth in the number
of people 60 years and over in Monroe County between 2000 and
2007. There are already 6,000 people over 65 living in the Lower
Keys.
Forty assisted living units and 95 independent living units are
to be built on a site that once housed a Navy diesel fuel plant.
There will also be an administration building with a kitchen and
maintenance and storage space. The slide of the architect
rendering suggested a scaled-down La Brisa.
"Why is the project taking so long?" asked Henriquez
oratorically. There are three phases to the development. The
first is to collect statistics and data; that takes 18 months to
two years of pre-development. Seven months were spent on the
referendum campaign. It then took nine months to get the city to
approve the lease. The coalition is now in meetings with the
planning department, with some obstacles still ahead.
Mayor McPherson, summing up for the panel, said that from his
point of view, "this conversation is simple and to the point."
He and the city commissioners have established a seven-member
board that has the capacity to act "if our potential partners
can't perform" (this in reference to the BCCLT and Assisted Care
Coalition). "What if our partners fail? I don't want that to
happen ... but if our potential partners cannot perform, we need
dates and datelines to plan and prepare for the next step, to
make a wise decision. We must be wiser to this day, which is
different than in 1995."
The organizer of the forum, David Lybrand, a member both of Last
Stand and the BCCLT board, then opened the panel to questions,
starting with the journalists at the front.
We asked the base commander, Capt. Steven Holmes, to comment on
whether unfolding pollution concerns at the waterfront might be
slowing down progress in redeveloping the former Navy site.
There have been several conveyances of the property to the city,
replied Holmes, but he wasn't here for any of them. If there has
been a history of pollution concerns during each conveyance, he
will get that information for us. Ron Demes, executive director
at Naval Air Station Key West, went on at greater length,
explaining that the Navy cleaned up the former port facility to
industrial standards but the proposed use for residential
purposes and parkland has required that it be cleaned up to a
higher standard.
Bradshaw confirmed that when a water tower was demolished at the
site not so long ago, Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) were
found on the ground. Samples are still being taken at the
location as the clean-up continues. The city is also doing a
risk assessment on old asphalt, as is the Navy on its own
portions of the property. No further PCBs have been found.
"There is nothing to stop the marina being built," added
Bradshaw.
A bluesy cry arose from mid-room. "Approximately how soon,"
crooned the questioner, will something start happening at the
waterfront? "Can you give us a bedtime story we can sleep with?"
Said Bookie Henriquez: "We're ready to go." Requests for
proposals are being sent to 25 developers identified as having
an interest in the assisted-living project; it is the developer
who must come up with the dollars that the leases will
ultimately pay off. Henriquez estimated the project is still six
to eight months from breaking ground.
Norma Jean Sawyer responded that the BCCLT is simply waiting for
its lease from the city. The trust has already spent $100,000 on
pre-development and is waiting to proceed to the planning
department and to the environmental people.
Next question: Will the opening of Cuba have any effect on the
new city marina at Truman Waterfront?
"I should think so," declared the mayor. A ferry terminal would
be integral to the new marina, he said. Both proposals now
before the city include such a terminal. And the present ferry
terminal at the Bight will be expanded and its dock extended in
anticipation of an open Cuba.
Fifty million dollars are being put up by the developer in the
marina joint project, revealed McPherson, adding that higher
points are given to contractors who will use local
subcontractors.
Time was spent on questions about the assisted and independent
living facility, on its distance from the hospital, how
residents will have to move out once they require skilled care,
and whether the place might be occupied by wealthy Parisians
who've lived here for only five years. All were ably fielded by
Henriquez with the help of the coalition's Joan Higgs.
Somebody wanted to know where the money made by the BCCLT from
its retail space would end up.
"That's a good question," said Sawyer. The conveyance of the
entire parcel by the Navy to the city eight years ago was an
economic conveyance, favored by the Navy over a parkland
conveyance. "The understanding I've had from every meeting since
then," said Sawyer, "is that Bahama Village should benefit from
any development on the property."
McPherson's animus began to show. "I would argue," he said, that
any profit by the BCCLT should be shared with the city so the
project would not become a burden.
Why, asked Al Sullivan of Last Stand, would the BCCLT differ in
that regard from the assisted living coalition?
The assisted living coalition, replied McPherson, was not
expected to hold onto the property, just create it. But the
BCCLT intends to find an anchor tenant and that would provide
"an ample opportunity for us to share in the profit."
"We are the community," rejoined Sawyer. "This opportunity was
given to us by the Navy."
Commissioner Bill Verge has clarified for Solares Hill the
actual story of the Navy and its supposed takings from Bahama
Village. Following Wednesday's forum he reminded us that the
military installation was at first an offshore site, Fort
Taylor, built by the Army. When the Navy took over, it created
the waterfront property from fill. The only parts of Bahama
Village it appropriated were some residences where the Shipyard
condos are now and a strip of land running from the foot of
today's Martin Luther King, Jr. community pool to the beach.
Sawyer had a different story. "In 1946, black, white and Cuban
families were displaced from their homes and never given the
value by the Navy. We're surrounded by Navy. My father worked at
the base, I remember the gifts we received. I feel a kinship
with the Navy, with Father Navy. As they said they would, they
have given it all back with this commitment to Bahama Village."
At the first forum by Last Stand, the issue of nearshore water
quality came up. And so it did again on Wednesday, leading
McPherson to make a wisecrack. "The water park will be 100
percent reuse," he said. Bookie Henriquez groaned. "You're not
going to give up on that, are ya?"
Todd German asked the big money question. With two leases going
for a $1-a-year apiece, where is the cash coming from for the
city to run the park?
"The marina revenue will support the rest of the property,"
prophesied Bradshaw. And, interjected McPherson, "the developers
are paying cash."
Sullivan came back for one more. When the park first was
conveyed to the city, he said, the city's intent was to put into
it between $15 million to $17 million of infrastructure. It
never went in, so how does the city intend to pay for it now?
"That's the biggest question," said McPherson. "It should have
been answered a long time ago." He believed, he said, that the
new board established by the commission will focus on the matter
immediately.
The panel was then asked to sum up.
Said the city's Bradshaw: "I know it seems slow, but we really
are progressing at the waterfront. I'll be happy when it
happens."
Said Sawyer: "Our partner is the largest tax-credit broker in
the country. We will complete the project in 2012. Our partner
will run it for 15 years, then we renegotiate."
Said Henriquez: "We're engaged with the planning board. They're
very cooperative, supportive, helpful ... They're upgrading the
Comp Plan, which is a must."
Said Capt. Holmes: "The Navy's role is rather limited. Bottom
line is the process is consistent with the conveyance.
Added Demes: "Scholl and Holmes may come and go -- but I'm still
here!"
Concluded McPherson: "Truman Waterfront is the crown jewel of
the city of Key West. We have other jewels, but this is our
crown jewel." Then he joked that Commissioner Verge will soon
enough be needing the assisted living center, where he can gaze
at the Mohawk and share memories of the Vandenberg....
mhowell@keysnews.com |
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