Nassau Redevelopment Appears Underway

by Larry Smith

"Nearly all the inhabitants...lived in the ramshackle township called Charles Town, just inside the harbour bar. A huddle of houses without real streets stretched from the waterfront to the...ridge. There was no fort or any public buildings save, perhaps, a small church...where the house called Greycliff was built much later." -- 17th century Nassau as portrayed in Islanders in the Stream by Gail Saunders and Michael Craton.

Driving through town from a trip out west recently was like navigating an obstacle course. The traffic is so chaotic it's a miracle that pedestrians are not slaughtered by the dozen.

Dowdy stores advertise cheap t-shirts to even cheaper cruise ship passengers - these days, hardly anyone else shops on the main drag, whose dirty sidewalks are infested with bums and street peddlers.

Incredibly, the straw market remains a gaping hole in the ground five years after it burned down, while vendors (this government's main constituency) swelter under a makeshift tent. Bay Street east of the Churchill Building has become a no-go zone of derelict shops and ugly freight terminals.

It is increasingly difficult to recall the Nassau that used to be - before the economic decline of the 1980s. Business and political leaders have been talking about reviving the city ever since then, but a tortuous drive through town will convince anyone that nothing much is happening. In fact, things seem only to be getting worse.

A year ago, Tough Call produced two articles on the redevelopment of Nassau (read it here) and the planned new container port at Clifton (read it here). At the time, government officials were touting their master plan to "transform Bay Street and the city", but the private sector people involved were decidedly gloomy. You could hardly blame them - they had spent years trying to jump start the project, with few results.

Fast forward to the present, and a chat with those same individuals reveals a more optimistic attitude, because apparently, something IS finally happening.

The downtown redevelopment plan drafted by the EDAW group, an international planning firm hired by the government in 2004, has now been published. And consultants have been chosen by each of the two public/private task forces spearheading this massive project.

A consulting contract for the new port went out to bid about three months ago. It calls for production of a complete business plan - including engineering details, financial projections, employment levels, technical operations and ownership/management options.

Early this month, the committee picked a top Dutch engineering firm from a shortlist of five bidders. Hutchinson Whampoa - the Hong Kong conglomerate that runs the Freeport container port - declined to get involved long ago, but has offered to help with advice if needed.

"We spent months sifting through bids from international consultants, all of them well-known in the shipping/port management industry. They included North American and European firms linked with local interests," one participant told Tough Call. "Our choice was submitted to cabinet and we are awaiting their approval."

"Once the consultants produce a business plan - expected by February - a construction contract for the port will go out to bid. We expect a groundbreaking during the second quarter of next year and completion of the port within three years."

Insiders expect the port to be operated by some sort of joint venture between the government and private shippers. A decade ago, the Inter-American Development Bank financed studies for the relocation of Bay Street’s container port to the southwest tip of the island. The estimated cost back then was $200 million, but the specifications have changed over the years, including the proposed site.

Current opinion calls for the terminal to be built on 200 acres of government land directly behind the BEC power plant and Commonwealth Brewery. A 300-foot-wide channel will be carved out between them leading to inland docking facilities dredged to a depth of 20 or 30 feet. An environmental impact assessment has already been completed - experts say sacrificing the coppice mediates damage to the nearshore reefs.

Most players are convinced that this is the island’s best option for sustainable growth. Our total population today is 325,000, with 225,660 (about 70 per cent) living on New Providence, producing a density of 2,812 people per square mile. Experts foresee a jump in the island’s population to over 300,000 within the next decade, and it will surely take some hard decisions and tough management to maintain a reasonable quality of life on this 80-square-mile island.

The EDAW plan called for the costs of the island's redevelopment to be split between the public and private sectors, and outlined seven districts along the waterfront from Arawak Cay to Montagu, each building upon a unique focal point and character of the area: “The reclamation of this valuable waterfront area is essential for creating a downtown Nassau that is a liveable place for residents and an attractive destination for tourists,” the plan says.

And according to Malcolm Martini, the government's Canadian advisor, moving the port is fundamental to getting the whole thing rolling: “Everyone will be involved in financing and operations as much as possible, and breaking ground on the port will force people to think about better land use in the city. This is the lynchpin."

The port task force is co-chaired by Mike Maura of Tropical Shipping and includes representatives from local shippers as well as government officials like Melanie Roach of Public Works, Mike Major of Physical Planning, Jack Thompson of Transport, Anthony Allens of the Port Department and Baltron Bethel of the Hotel Corporation.

These officials also sit on the downtown task force, which is co-chaired by retailer Charles klonaris and includes others from the private sector like realtor Larry Roberts, financial experts Paul McWeeney, Owen Bethel and Ian Fair, marketer Khalis Rolle and Chamber of Commerce director Philip Simon. Paul Major, the ex-general manager of Bahamasair, was picked as the prime minister's point man to co-chair both committees.

According to one participant, "these committees are one of the few instances I know of where public and private sector leaders actually sit and talk to each other productively with the same goal in mind. The prime minister is unequivocally behind this effort and things are finally moving."

The downtown committee has hired Brad Segal, of the Colorado-based Progressive Urban Management Associates, to develop a business plan for the city that will include an independent management authority. Segal is an expert in the US on setting up downtown management organizations and creating business improvement districts to finance them. Essentially, such entities have a legal mandate to assess commercial property in order to fund services that benefit the entire district.

"Segal has been here off and on for several weeks meeting with downtown property and business owners to determine what they see as the main priorities to stabilise the city", Klonaris told Tough Call. "At the top of the list is parking, followed by public safety and improvements to the physical environment."

Klonaris says Segal was "absolutely astonished" at the utter lack of parking management in the downtown area: "This is absolutely critical for the city and he will produce an interim plan by November on ways to tackle the issue in the short term. On-site parking is the most critical problem - we need things like meters, fewer taxi spaces and more options for jitneys at the edge of town."

By end of February, Segal is expected to have completed his downtown business plan and draft legislation will hopefully be ready for government to implement. This is being drafted on a pro bono basis by lawyers Sean McSweeney and Judy Whitehead of Graham Thompson & Co - but what happens after February is difficult to predict because of the uncertainty posed by the general election, which must be held before May.

Nevertheless, Klonaris remains optimistic: "Eventually we will have the authority to manage the city - the government has given the green light on that. Everyone has to take this project very seriously. We cannot continue to take things for granted. We have to maintain and improve the product we are selling and the government is just as committed to this as we are."

Members of both task forces meet monthly with Energy & Environment Minister Dr Marcus Bethel as well as relevant senior officials from other ministries. They discuss ways of addressing problems in the short-term that don't carry a big price tag.

According to Klonaris, these quick fixes include more police presence downtown, better enforcement of existing laws, turning Charlotte Street north into a pedestrian zone, installing a stop light at Elizabeth Avenue to slow speeders, experimenting with parking meters, moving jitneys off the road into government parking lots, and limiting the access of buses to Bay Street by identifying parking areas on the periphery of town.

"Soon," he says,"there will be huge improvements. By moving the port we will free up acres of waterfront land for redevelopment. In the meantime we have to manage as best we can to stop the decline."

Comments

[EB Christen]

Cross your fingers. All the ideas and thinking are right... This would be a revolution in public/private sector cooperation and an amazing step in the right direction for the country as a whole. First the port and downtown and then... the possibilities are really staggering.