A marina on Clearwater's downtown waterfront certainly would dress up the area, which is now distinguished by a dingy seawall, mud flats at low tide, a stump of a pier and the towering superstructure of the partially completed Memorial Causeway bridge.
But would the marina be safe?
Would it be properly designed and managed?
Would it create headaches for other boaters using the adjacent Intracoastal Waterway boat channel, or for people who live nearby?
None of those questions was satisfactorily answered last week at a presentation by city officials and the city's marine consultant, Wade-Trim. City officials will need to look beyond the consultant's pretty pictures to mount a convincing case to the public that a marina would be just the perfect thing in that location.
Admittedly, it is early in the process. Wade-Trim is studying the feasibility of a city marina with up to 150 slips strung along the downtown waterfront on both sides of the new bridge and extending westward close to the waterway boat channel.
The $5-million marina would have slips for boats up to 70 feet long, available for one day, a short-term visit of up to several months or for those wanting permanent mooring. Live-aboards would not be permitted, but slips would be equipped with water, sewer, electricity and even cable television.
A new marina is part of the city's proposal for rejuvenating downtown and the Coachman Park area. City officials know that after the new bridge opens and beach-bound traffic no longer uses Cleveland Street, the downtown will have few amenities to attract visitors. So one of the goals of the plan is to bring more people downtown to live and play. The waterfront portion of the plan includes not just the marina, but a new parking garage, a restaurant, a redesigned Coachman Park with more green space and a promenade out into the water, constructed on the piers of the old causeway bridge.
The marina portion of the plan is raising the most eyebrows. Some of those attending a public meeting on the proposal last week are residents of Pierce 100, a condominium tower built years ago on a dredged finger of land extending into the waterway. Pierce 100 residents fought the construction of the new high-rise bridge and lost. Now they face the prospect of a marina in what some of them call their "front yard." In fact, some of the slips would be within 50 feet of their building.
Though the consultant pointed out to the residents - probably correctly - that having a marina in front of their building likely would increase rather than decrease their property values, Pierce 100 residents are worried that boat motors, onboard parties, and increased automobile traffic along the waterfront will disturb their peaceful existence. As city officials discuss design and other details, they also should be talking about the rules marina users would have to live by and how the marina would be managed and secured.
The more serious issue raised by several people at last week's meeting is whether the location proposed for the marina is safe.
The consultants painted a picture of the waters at the base of Cleveland Street as "protected" and ideal for a marina constructed entirely of floating docks.
But anyone who has lived in Clearwater and observed that waterfront through storms such as Hurricane Elena in 1985, the no-name storm in 1993, and Tropical Storm Josephine in 1996 knows how that placid waterfront can be transformed by weather.
The city's other marina, tucked on the back side of the Clearwater Beach barrier island, is, indeed, in a protected spot. The downtown waterfront is a different story. Storms that come in from the west blow across the wide Intracoastal Waterway, piling up water on the east side that crashes against and over the downtown seawall. Memorial Causeway and Pierce 100 can offer some protection - or none at all, depending on the direction of the wind.
Marinas typically provide protection by either taking advantage of natural features in the landscape or by building breakwaters. For example, a private marina just north of downtown uses a combination of man-made structures and the city's Seminole boat ramp property to protect its boats. The St. Petersburg Marina uses large breakwaters and the Pier for protection from wind and waves.
The proposed Clearwater marina would have no such protection, just wave attenuators built into the underside of the floating docks. How effective would they be in a storm?
Before Clearwater invests too much effort and money in pursuing this marina proposal, it should consult objective experts, perhaps even the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, about the location and whether breakwaters would be required to protect boats moored there. Better to know the answer now than after the marina is built and a storm blows in.
