CINCINNATI — If Cincinnati’s riverfront boat dock was up and running today, at least two riverboats would have had trouble parking for this week's America's River Roots festival.
Critics of Cincinnati’s Reef Marina project, including B&B Riverboats owner Alan Bernstein, have said for years that it will keep riverboats from stopping in Cincinnati.
“The marina really needs to be a lot further down the river,” Bernstein told the I-Team in July.
City officials have repeatedly said only a small portion of the Public Landing will be blocked by the project.
So, the WCPO 9 I-Team used America’s River Roots festival as an excuse to see who’s right.
Watch below to see what we found:
We took aerial pictures of five riverboats lined up on the Public Landing at 10 a.m. on Oct. 9, then overlaid the dock’s latest design drawings, which we obtained in a public records request to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this in July.
The overlay shows two boats would have been unable to access the Public Landing at all, while a third may have found it difficult to access the landing because the reef’s 5,000-square-foot restaurant extends about 100 feet into the Ohio River in a spot very close to where a riverboat was moored.
The Cincinnati Park Board isn’t swayed by the I-Team’s analysis.
“This project adds docking for 42 boats, providing a lot more year-round public access to the landing, which is a huge asset to the city,” Spokesman Rocky Merz said. “We’re confident we can work out the logistics, and there is still plenty of room to host future large-scale special events on our riverfront, as we frequently do.”
A statement from Hafner & Sons, the city’s marina developer, said the project “maintains the landing’s full capacity to host multiple vessels during major events.”
The new dock is designed to “enhance accessibility” during elevated river stages, when much of the Public Landing is under water.
“Upgraded docking infrastructure and direct access to Mehring way will provide safer, more reliable riverfront use for a wide range of visitors and users,” said Hafner’s statement.
River Roots festival patron Jim Schmidt sees no reason why Cincinnati can’t have a boat dock and recurring riverboat festivals.
“It may inconvenience a couple boats, but here's the thing: Things like that happen once every five years. If you had a boat dock, you could use it every weekend of the summer,” Schmidt said. “If it's a floating dock, then you bring a tugboat in and then you move it for one week every five years.”
Whatever the solution, it appears the city will have time to figure it out. The project continues to move at a glacial pace.
A riverfront boat dock has been a dream of city officials since 2015, when Cincinnati landed a $1.5 million federal grant through the Ohio Division of Natural Resources. That led to a $3.6 million boat dock design that was scrapped when estimated costs rose to $5 million.
By 2019, the federal grant was in danger of expiring. So, the Park Board launched a new effort to revive the project. That led to an unsolicited offer by Queen City Riverboats to build and operate the dock in exchange for city funds set aside for the project.
When critics complained about Queen City’s financial terms and other aspects of the deal, the Park Board launched another bidding competition, which led to Hafner’s selection in December 2021.
Four years later, Hafner still doesn’t have a contract with the city. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suspended its permit review last September, pending Hafner’s delivery of “final engineer-stamped construction plans.”
Merz said Hafner is still working on those plans, so the project’s cost is not yet known. The city is applying for another $1.5 million grant from the state.
“Our goal is to have all the resources needed between Parks, the contractor, and other sources such as grants, to make this a successful project,” Merz said.
