Tuesday, June 13, 2000
Authority likely to manage project
By Robert Anglen
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Cincinnati officials seem convinced an expanded port authority should manage the city's riverfront development — they're just not sure how it should be done.
In a two-hour session of questions Monday, City Council members asked about the authority's power to tax, levy bonds and seize land.
At the same time, members of the existing port authority asked some questions of their own.
“We clean up dirty, abandoned and polluted sites,” authority Chairman Tom Brush said. “We're just asking that you do no harm to the current port authority's work.”
Since it was formed three years ago, the Port Authority for Brownfields Redevelopment has concentrated on cleaning up industrial waste sites in Hamilton County.
“We are a port authority with no port and no authority,” Mr. Brush said.
Now a riverfront advisory group said the authority is the only agency that can pull off The Banks, a $250 million plan to build housing, shops, office space, restaurants and a park between the two new sports stadiums.
They said expanding the financial and legislative power of the city-county authority would allow it to oversee construction and raise the $177 million still needed for development, including $81.2 million to pay for a 71-acre park.
Answers need to be forthcoming in the next two weeks, or The Banks could fall behind a schedule that calls for development proposals by August 1.
Council members asked the city manager to meet with Hamilton County officials and port authority members to hammer out a plan by next week.
Councilwoman Alicia Reece said she is concerned about that deadline, because it took city administrators three weeks to come up with a list of questions.
“We're going to need a lot of answers before we go on,” she said, calling the plan a great vision.
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