WATERFRONT

Alternate sites for Scotia Prince are slim pickin’s

By Noah Bruce

On June 27, ICON, the city-hired consultant team, presented their findings regarding an alternate site for the Scotia Prince in the Merill Auditorium practice room. And damned if over 100 people didn’t show up to hear what ICON had to say — and let their voices be heard.

In case you’ve been asleep for the past six months, here, in a nutshell, is what preceded Wednesday’s meeting: in April of this year, City Hall bowed to public pressure by agreeing to halt progress on Ocean Gate, the project that will place the Prince on the East End, ex-BIW site, while a study was conducted looking at alternative locations for the international ferry.

Citizens who wanted public access to the waterfront were unhappy with the way Ocean Gate seemed to be unfolding. In order to prevent citizens’ worst fears of a huge flat parking lot, the city had planned to build a multi-tiered parking garage that would take up less ground space. However, the city didn’t have close to the estimated $40 million this would take, so, as a first step, it planned to build exactly what many said they wanted least, the flat parking lot.

On Wednesday, the ICON representative got to the point rather quickly - the consulting group had looked at nine possible locations, but, unfortunately, only two were viable for the Prince, and one was the very same BIW pier designated for the ferry under Ocean Gate. The other solution was to leave the Scotia Prince where it currently is, at the International Marine Terminal (IMT), and move the container business that shares this terminal. (Overcrowding at the IMT is the principle reason the Prince is being moved.)

Moving the container business would prevent a big, ugly parking lot on the East End, but would be more expensive. ICON admitted they have not yet done an analysis of how much it would cost to buy the current site owned by Guilford Railways — the same company that is most responsible for delaying Amtrak’s arrival in Portland for nearly a decade — or to build a new pier, as the one on this site is dilapidated beyond repair. This plan would also require the city to pay the added expense of operating the extra pier.

The majority of the citizens who spoke, however, were more concerned with protecting the BIW site than with cost. “People wanted access to the waterfront. They wanted a park,” said Ginger Raspiller referring to citizens who participated in city-sponsored charettes — public brainstorming sessions for the future of the waterfront. “They also asked what was our biggest nightmare. . . It was a flat parking lot.”

Henk Pols, president of Prince of Fundy Cruises, which owns the Scotia Prince, was on-hand to read a prepared statement. He claimed he had been personally insulted that the ferry had been termed the “Welfare Prince,” referring to a Portland Press Herald letter from Peaks Island resident Norm Rasulis. He also dropped a thinly-veiled threat when he said, “Many times officials from other cities have approached me wanting the Scotia Prince.”