Marina plans to move forward

CLEARWATER – After months of discussion and preliminary studies, the city is ready to move forward with plans to build a 129-slip marina on the downtown waterfront, at the eastern end of the Memorial Causeway Bridge. The City Council last week gave staffers the go-ahead to draft the necessary referendum in a form likely to be approved by the voters in November, and spend more than $150,000 to obtain the required permits.“The only decision we get to make is whether to take it to referendum,” Councilman John Doran explained. “Whether these boat slips happen or not is up to the voters of Clearwater.”“I’m excited about the whole project,” Mayor Frank Hibbard said of the marina, which is expected to spend $300,000 a year more on operating expenses and debt service than the $1.6 million a year it is projected to take in.“I wish it would cash-flow from the beginning, but I guess that’s a bit optimistic.”Kirby Marshall of Applied Technology Management, the project’s financial consultant, proposed charging transient boaters $1.85 per foot per day, and charging long-term renters $14 per foot per month. That’s considerably more than the $4.58 per foot per month the city currently charges at its Municipal Marina on Clearwater Beach, but well below the statewide average of $18 to $19 per foot per month.“There will be people who will almost be willing to bid on this to get their boat into this facility, Councilman Hoyt Hamilton said, adding that boat owners won’t have to cross the busy Memorial Causeway Bridge to reach their boats.Hibbard said the city would have to convince the voters that the marina will be an amenity that will benefit all Clearwater residents, and not just a subsidy to boat owners.Doug Matthews, the city’s communications director, said his department is geared up to do just that, with a series of public meetings. But Vice Mayor Carlen Petersen didn’t need convincing.“I don’t own a boat,” Petersen said. “But I would love to see a downtown marina.”Margie Simmons, the city’s finance director, said there are ways to narrow or eliminate the $300,000 annual gap between the marina’s income and expenses. Among them, she said, are raising slip rents, using Penny for Pinellas sales tax revenue for the restrooms and other on-shore facilities, and issuing the $11 million of bonds for 25 or 30 years instead of the proposed 20 years.“We’re going to be vigorously pursuing grants and other partnerships,” Simmons said. Eventually, Marshall and Simmons agreed, the marina will become self-supporting.“It’s really a no-brainer,” Marshall said. “There are more boats than there are slips.”Originally planned for 138 slips, the marina will be built to withstand a Category 2 hurricane, although that will require some “armoring” of the seawall with concrete rip-rap. It will have floating docks instead of fixed ones, and no davits or lifts. Wood, steel, aluminum and stainless steel were rejected in favor of concrete for the docks. Although concrete costs approximately 20 percent more than wood, it is expected to last 40 years.“The life-cycle costs of concrete docks are better,” David Gildersleeve of the Wade Trim engineering firm explained. “The initial costs might be a little higher, but that is made up over the life of the docks.”There was discussion of whether the marina should be limited to pleasure boats or also allow commercial boats. Hibbard said that commercial boats would be a good catalyst for invigorating the waterfront.“We don’t want charter fishing boats going out of this facility,” Hamilton replied. “We don’t want people filleting fish on the docks of this facility.” But he added that he has no objection to excursion boats docking there.“Even for nonfishing commercial vessels, there are upland storage requirements that you don’t want to see on the downtown vista,” Bill Morris, the city’s marine and aviation director told the council. He suggested that excursion boats be docked at the Municipal Marina but have a spot where passengers can be picked up and discharged at the downtown marina.The measure to draft the referendum ballot and finance the permitting process passed unanimously.