Port Security Tangles Route of Riverwalk

    Aug. 19, 2005
    Trying to keep Riverwalk next to the river proves to be a challenge due to securing of wharf area

    Source Tampa Tribune (FL) (KRT) via NewsEdge Corporation

    City and port officials continue to consider several routes for the proposed Riverwalk in the Channel District -- although security concerns remain an obstacle to hopes that the Riverwalk there can stay mostly on the water.

    "Eventually we would like to continue down the wharf" toward The Florida Aquarium, Lee Hoffman, the city's Riverwalk development manager, said at Tuesday's Port of Tampa monthly meeting.

    Port officials and the Port Of Tampa Maritime Industries Association have voiced their general support for Riverwalk. However, they must contend with security considerations that closed the wharf behind the Channelside shopping center. That wharf is only open to the public for certain holiday events, such as the Fourth of July fireworks displays.

    For the near-term, port officials said Tuesday that they will begin to study the costs and security problems for options that would take the Riverwalk beyond a potential dead end at the Beneficial Drive bridge. Those routes would pass behind a pair of proposed 30-story condominium towers, continue along a portion of the wharf, and angle north along Garrison Street and into the Channelside complex.

    One partial remedy could be to relocate a security fence along the wharf by 8 feet to allow pedestrians to follow a route near the river.

    Such an option, if approved by security officials, could use a slice of land for Riverwalk that is to be sold to Brooks Byrd, who wants to develop the twin condo towers. Byrd would be expected to pay for the Riverwalk through his property like other land owners along the route.

    That undetermined financial obligation by Byrd would be based on the assumption that tenants there would gain from access to the Riverwalk, a 2.5-mile series of walkways in the downtown area that the city hopes to complete by 2009. Other tenants along the way, such as the developers of Trump Tower Tampa at Ashley Drive just north of the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway, also must pitch in on costs of Riverwalk, city officials said.

    Also Tuesday, port officials said they would discuss fees the port charges the American Victory Mariners Memorial & Museum Ship and the port's plans for new warehouses at an Aug. 24 budget workshop. Port Director Richard Wainio said the proposed budget would eliminate fees the port charges the museum for its visitors, which amount to about $4,000 a year.

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