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Evolving port whirs forward

Controversy has drawn attention to the Port of Tampa, the city's overlooked economic giant.

By STEVE HUETTEL
Published November 1, 2004

TAMPA -- Tampa's port is about the gas in your tank and the olive oil in your kitchen.

It's about the declining phosphate industry and the rising cruise ship business, gleaming new condos and gritty old shipyards. And, lately, it's about leadership.

The relatively obscure public agency that oversees the port has been in the spotlight as management turmoil forced its governing board Wednesday to demote the interim director and bring in a retired executive to steady the ship.

Conflicts between the Tampa Port Authority and port businesses have quickly boiled over into a crisis. Companies complained at a tumultuous hearing that the agency moved too slowly and didn't deal straight with them.

When interim director Zelko Kirincich suddenly fired the authority's legal counsel and real estate director, Mayor Pam Iorio stepped in and asked William Starkey to run the agency until a permanent director is found. Kirincich returned to his old job of deputy director.

"The port is so important and we need strong leadership," she said. "The staff needs direction and so does the maritime community."

This kind of spat at an agency that leases public land, arranges channel dredging and sets wharfage rates (fees for moving cargo across docks) has many people wondering, "What's the big deal?"

The port authority's marketing mantra promotes the port as west-central Florida's "Greatest Economic Engine," generating 108,000 jobs and $13-billion a year in economic activity.

Look at just employment and sales by port-related businesses -- not the trickle-down impact of money they spend -- and the numbers are still big: 34,658 jobs, $1.3-billion in wages and $6-billion in goods sold, according to a 2002 study commissioned by the port authority.

That means paychecks for thousands of truckers, phosphate miners and fertilizer plant employees, stevedores and construction workers.

Virtually every drop of gasoline, heating oil and jet and diesel fuel pumped from the Pinellas beaches to Orlando and from Naples to north of the Tampa Bay area comes through the port, some 5.9-billion gallons annually.

Cruise ships leaving from Tampa brought 405,000 passengers to the city in the last year. One in three stayed in a hotel. Including taxi rides, meals, shopping and trips to Busch Gardens, each cruise visitor spends an average of $190 in Tampa, reported a survey conducted last year for the Tampa Bay Convention & Visitors Bureau.

The port also is a major player in redeveloping Tampa's downtown, an issue at the top of Iorio's agenda and important to the city's business establishment.

Channelside, the entertainment-restaurant complex next to a cruise dock, is a leading attraction in the hot Channel District. The port authority agreed to sell land next to Channelside for twin 30-story condo towers and endorsed a high-tech conference center and world-class hotel north along Ybor Channel.

The economic engine is humming along, but not without a lot of friction and heat.

Competing interests have always battled at the port. Tenants try to hold onto leases and keep costs down. The port authority wants to generate more money for responsibilities that don't pay, such as for channel dredging and federally mandated security improvements.

The city worries about noisy, dirty industries bothering neighbors. As condo towers sprout up in Channelside, developers look hungrily at publicly owned waterfront land that has been home to industrial businesses for decades.

Balancing all the conflicting interests falls largely to the port director and the agency's five-member board. "How you make all that mesh is hard to do," said Bob Steiner, port director from 1995 to 1999.

It didn't used to be so complicated. The port traditionally focused on companies that shipped out phosphate and fertilizer, shipped in petroleum or worked on the ships sailing into Tampa.

Those commodities still dominate the cargo business. But since the early '90s, officials have been working to diversify the port.

The newest focus is expanding Tampa's container cargo business, in response to local importers tired of paying to truck 20- and 40-foot metal containers from ports such as Miami, Savannah, Ga., or Charleston, S.C.

Vigo Importing of Tampa now moves about 10 containers of food - from anchovies to olive oil in 6,000-gallon tanks - from the Mediterranean Sea to the port each week, saving 5 percent to 8 percent over shipping through other ports, said general manager Sam Ciccarello.

The biggest success by far, however, has been cruise ships. The number of passengers grew fourfold since 1997, and six ships will sail from the port during the peak fall-winter season starting this month.

"The people who come here do drop a lot of money," said Paul Catoe, chief executive of the convention and visitors bureau. "It helps the hotels, the restaurants, shopping centers. The port's helping us, helping tourism tremendously."

Traditional industrial businesses aren't so delighted. The biggest cruise ships take up so much of Tampa Bay's main shipping channel that the port must stop vessels from sailing in the opposite direction.

That has caused delays for ship operators such as Maritrans, the major petroleum shipper at the port. The port authority is working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to widen the channel and create a "passing lane" near the Sunshine Skyway bridge before the end of the decade.

Industrial businesses also complain the port authority tilts in favor of developers.

Two real estate projects - the conference center and hotel and a warehouse and office development - would displace shipyards needed to service vessels, said Maritrans chief executive Jonathan Whitworth.

"You can have condos and cruise ships," he said. "But you also need (industrial) infrastructure. Those are real jobs that are here, whether the cruise ship is in or not, jobs we need to keep."

Steve Huettel can be reached at 813 226-3384 or huettel@sptimes.com

[Last modified November 1, 2004, 00:11:20]