River businesses fear future

Shipyards along the polluted, long-neglected Miami River -- Florida's fourth-busiest port -- have waited decades for this moment. Dredging of the river has begun, a process that will scoop 900,000 tons of sediment from the waterway.

When the project has been completed several years from now, the Miami River will be cleaner and deeper -- the new depth giving a boost to commerce now handicapped by the gook piled up on the river bottom. Cargo ships that now traverse the river can do so only at high tide and cannot completely fill their holds.

All that will change. But other changes also are afoot.

Developers of high-rise condos have discovered the river and are snatching up industrial properties. Miami leaders have embraced this transformation, routinely rezoning land there to accommodate a burst of residential development. More than 7,000 residential units are now either under construction or in the final stages of permitting.

That makes some river businesses wonder whether they will survive, even though the main purpose of the $84 million dredging project -- at least on paper -- is to aid the shipping industry, not create a nicer water view for penthouse-apartment dwellers.

''I worry daily,'' said Beau Payne, owner of P&L Towing, a tugboat company on the river. Payne said city leaders are trying to create a yuppie-friendly ``South Beach thing.''

''They want to develop the river and get rid of us,'' he said.

Miami City Commission Chairman Joe Sanchez insists there will always be a place for marine businesses along Miami's ''working'' river -- a $4 billion-a-year economic engine credited with creating, directly and indirectly, roughly 8,000 relatively well-paying local jobs.

But Sanchez does not dispute that the river is evolving -- and quickly.

A RICH HISTORY

Miami's river is the city's birthplace -- it snakes through its geographic heart, and along its banks are numerous remnants of the area's soul. Among them are the 2,000-year-old Miami Circle -- evidence of an ancient Native American village -- historic hotels, parks and neighborhoods.

Early in Miami's existence, the river became a center for trade, and that trade has blossomed even as environmental and navigational conditions declined. The maintenance dredging being performed on the river today has never been done before and is widely seen as long overdue.

In its current, clogged-up state, the river is still Florida's only shallow-draft port. That makes it a vital shipping link to the Caribbean, where many cities are served exclusively by smaller boats unable to dock at mammoth facilities such as the Port of Miami-Dade.

Since 2000, the city of Miami has converted about 26 acres of riverfront marine industrial land into residential properties. Developers have their eyes on nearly 18 additional acres. If that land goes high-rise as well, more than half the industrial land along Miami's portion of the river -- the county controls the upper third -- will be gone. The county's share of the river, entirely industrial, has thus far remained that way, although condos are creeping ever closer.

SENSIBLE LIMITS

''There's a mad rush to develop along the river because it's prime property,'' Sanchez said. ``Where do you draw the line? I think that's the $65 million dollar question.''

Robert Parks, former chairman of the Miami River Commission, thinks there's an answer to the dilemma: It's called the Miami River Urban Infill Plan.

The river commission -- a collection of elected officials, businesses, residents and other stakeholders -- in 2002 adopted its infill plan, partially funded and drawn up by the city of Miami. The plan spells out exactly what should be built where along the river. It has since won an award of excellence from the Florida chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects Planners Association.

But the Miami City Commission has refused to adopt this blueprint for future development. The city expressed doubt that it included sufficient economic data and so began a separate economic study of the river, which has not yet been completed. Because it has not accepted the plan, the city is not bound by its guidelines. Those guidelines call for fewer condos on the river than some city leaders want.

''The plan needs to be adopted,'' said Parks, the former river commission head. ``Or the river fails.''

Parks, who recently stepped down from the commission for ''personal reasons,'' expressed disappointment about never being able to strike up a working relationship with Miami Mayor Manny Diaz. Diaz could not be reached to comment for this report.

''I don't know what the mayor's position on the river is,'' Parks said. ``I tried to find out but couldn't.''

City Commissioner Angel Gonzalez, a Diaz ally whose district encompasses much of the river, has been vilified by some in the marine industry as being recklessly pro-development. Gonzalez was the chief proponent of Hurricane Cove, a controversial 1,072-unit condo development approved by the city earlier this year. The project's three towers -- two of 28 stories and one of 26 stories -- replaced a public boatyard.

AN ACTIVE ZONE

When asked what the future of the river should be, Gonzalez said, ``My vision is what is happening right now -- redevelopment, building homeownership units, restaurants, nightclubs, discotheques, bars, you name it.''

Gonzalez said his priority is that land not sit idle. Some industrial properties on the river had been abandoned for years, he said, so they were rezoned for condos.

Most shipping companies are located in the county's portion of the river anyway, Gonzalez added.

Richard Dubin, owner of 5th Street Terminal in the city's section of the river, says industry is not dying so much as it is consolidating. He is working to close a deal in which he would sell his shipping business to a condo developer but plans to continue working on the river -- probably as part of a larger company in the still-industrial upper third of the waterway.

''It's going to be shuffled; instead of 15 little operations, it might be six larger operations,'' Dubin said. ``Boats are still going to pass by. You can still watch them.''

If those fewer shipyards can pick up the slack and avoid a drop-off in the amount of cargo going in and out of the river, Uncle Sam will be satisfied. The federal government agreed to contribute more than $59 million to the dredging project in the name of helping commerce.

Should industry vanish, so too would that federal money.

But as long as the overall cargo figures stay strong -- whether being carried by four companies or 40 -- the dredging can go forward as is, said Luis Rene Perez, project manager with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

''We haven't seen any substantial drop there to justify the government pulling out,'' Perez said