Trade Public Belt for Riverfront Park at River Garden and Esplanade Ave.
14th June 2017 · 0 Comments
By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu stands on the verge of a political victory that would enjoy bi-racial, citywide support, a welcome change in the wake of the monuments fight. Swapping the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad for port wharves on the Mississippi River opens new parkland for locals and visitors, and equally fulfills the Mayor’s promise to dispense with the only publically-owned railroad for a civic purpose—without the economic complications of a full privatization.
However, if the unused, former open-air wharf, adjacent to the First Street Wharf at Jackson Ave., is not included as part of the swap, the Mayor may be subject to the criticism that he got a bad deal from the Port of New Orleans. Opponents of the Mayor might claim that Landrieu created river access for tourists in the Vieux Carré at the expense of losing the chance of a new riverfront park for residents of the former St. Thomas Housing Project and the Irish Channel.
Under the terms of the deal announced last Wednesday, June 7th, the City of New Orleans would take ownership of the Gov. Nicholls Street and Esplanade Avenue wharves on the Mississippi River, granting the public continuous access to the waterfront from Spanish Plaza at Canal Street to Crescent Park in the Bywater. (If one includes the Riverwalk access, the public would enjoy a non-stop stroll along the River until Julia St. in the Warehouse District).
The $15 million needed to convert the wharves between Crescent Park and Woldenberg Park into parkland would come from mostly private sources, and as Brandy Christian, president and CEO of the Port of New Orleans, said in a press release, “This plan allows the City and hospitality to maximize public use at the front porch of the City…The port gains the ability to strategically invest in cargo movement by water and rail to drive economic growth and job creation.”
It is the latter sentence that mattered to Port officials. Landrieu’s original idea of selling the New Orleans Public Belt for between $60 to $70 million elicited terror in the minds of the Port’s Board of Commissioners. Six major railroad lines converge in New Orleans. Each different company uses the 26 miles of track that constitute the only city-owned railway in the United States. These include the critical nine miles of track that literally constitute the bridge between the railways of the East and West coasts, at the Huey P. Long Bridge.
Moreover, the Public Belt’s 40 miles of terminals, yards, and other tracks intersect with the Port of New Orleans’ various intermodal loading docks and industrial facilities that are strung along Port’s wharves on the River.
Each of the six private rail companies salivated at the prospect of having of their railroad enjoying exclusive access to the Port of New Orleans’ rail loading docks, or charging their rail-line competitors ludicrous fees for that privilege—along with the incomparable power of controlling train river crossings on the Southern end of the Mississippi River. Seventy million dollars is a pittance compared to the competitive advantage that a single monopolistic rail company would gain from controlling the most important cross-Mississippi commercial rail right-of-way south of Chicago.
The impoverished City of New Orleans, which earns virtually no revenue (tax or fee) from the Public Belt, could not ignore the possibility of a $70 million influx of cash to fix streets or infrastructure, but the Port of New Orleans warned that the chaos a sale of the Public Belt would “drive up costs and make the Port completely uncompetitive” in contrast to its rivals, as one Commissioner put it privately to The Louisiana Weekly.
However, swapping tracks for the wharves fulfills another legacy goal begun by Mitch Landrieu’s father Moon. It opens the river to the public. The elder Mayor first opened the riverfront park at Jackson Square, creating what was later dubbed the “Moonwalk” on a former dock space, and his son played a key role in converting the dockspace downriver abutting the Marigny and Bywater into Crescent Park.
In the middle of the two parks stands a profitable wharf at Esplanade Avenue, which the Port of New Orleans has been loath to surrender. For a while, in fact, the Port looked as if they would rent the space to a displaced chicken “cold storage” distribution company, and, continuously, the Port has earned a considerable return from its existing tenant, TCI Trucking. Only something as alluring as protecting the independence of the Public Belt would move the Port to replace these profitable dockages with parkland.
Yet, perhaps missed by the Landrieu Administration is that the Esplanade Ave. and Gov. Nicholls St. wharves are not valuable as they used to be, and there is the potential of a better deal which would include unused dockage near the Irish Channel as well. When the Mississippi Gulf River Outlet closed in the aftermath of Katrina, the importance of the “Industrial Canal” declined. The connection between the River and Lake Pontchartrain, the Canal’s original purpose, remained active, but the massive amount of shipping that traversed MR-GO disappeared. These shipping lines often docked at Esplanade Ave., due to its nearby connivance, to the Canal and MR-GO.
Therefore, a $70 million dollar value for the Gov. Nicholls and Esplanade wharves is debatable. The possibility of sweetener could be added, if the city acts fast-the unused wharf at Jackson Ave. that runs from the old ferry station at the edge of the First Street Wharf to the edge of the Walmart parking lot at the intersection of Tchoupitoulas St. and the Truckway portal. Or, put another way, the entirety of RiverGarden, the Hope6 Apartment Develop-ment that encompasses the former St. Thomas Housing Project.
More than a decade ago, a group of Garden District philanthropists approached the Commissioners and management of the Port of New Orleans asking if the vacant wharf near the First Street facility could be donated to the city or to a non-profit under its direction. These gentlemen, in turn, would raise the millions of dollars required to build a riverfront park on the wharf.
The children of the former St. Thomas Housing Project had limited parkland options after all, and many expressed great enthusiasm for a riverfront park that could also serve residents of the Irish Channel and Lower and Upper Garden Districts. (Ultimately, the demise of the Jackson Ave. ferry even created the possibility of utilizing the raised walkway and parking lot for the Upriver end, much as Crescent Park has. Access to the wharf is relatively open at the other end, near the intersection of Felicity and Nuns Streets, at the Clarence Henry Truckway access, via the addition of a crosswalk.)
Even Gretna officials across the river offered to help, as the unseemly dock faced the Jefferson Parish county-seat and its riverfront. It seemed the perfect deal. The uncovered, open-air wharf was not earning the Port any revenue, and the children needed a park. However, the Port of New Orleans fought the idea with a vengeance, according to one of the lawyers involved in the process. They argued that since there had once been a neighborhood at that bend in the river, that was subsumed when the Mississippi changed course, donating Port property would involve getting permission from the descendants of each an every homeowner—whose property had been underwater for nearly two centuries.
The 1898 Act creating what Dock Board granted a “maritime servitude” over all wharf properties transferred to its control. Consequently, Port Commissioners feared that if any “servitude was not used for active maritime purposes”, that original servitude giving the rights to the property under the wharfs could be revoked. Therefore, the Port of New Orleans, heir to the Dock Board, could not surrender any wharf properties, unless no dispute of ownership existed.
As the city originally owned the batture under Woldenberg Park, the Commissioners argued, there was no a concern over the previous park’s legal title. That clarity did not exist, however, in the case of the subsumed Lower Garden District streets.
Critics note that the logic the port employed a decade ago could, in theory, restrict transfer of the Esplanade Ave wharves today, as that underlying batture ownership title is unclear, yet today’s Port Commissioners have silenced their fears to conduct the current railroad swap. For that reason, one of the original philanthropists argued to the Weekly that the Port’s “alleged theoretical complexities from using marine oriented land as a public park” in the Lower Garden District had no practical legal basis. As he put to this newspaper, “It wasn’t that the port legally could not surrender the wharf. It’s that they didn’t want to part with any property on the river” a decade ago.
The Port of New Orleans is a state constitutional oddity, essentially a state government body operating as a private business for the public economic good. It generates its own operating funds, and is protected legally by anything short of a constitutional amendment. Even Governors shy away from crossing Port Commissioners—whom they appoint, usually at the ‘recommendations’ of out-going commissioners.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu has a once in a generation opportunity to gain control of this wharf and giving the residents of the Lower Garden District, in particular, access to a river park just as the Bywater has at Crescent or Uptown at the “Fly” at Audubon Park. He is in a commanding negotiating position, in offering to surrender the Public Belt to the Port. Asking for a little lagniappe in order to create a Lower Garden District Riverfront Park is not too great an additional request.
“It is clear that the Public Belt Railroad is a critical element of the port’s competitive advantage, which means it is critical for the future growth potential in trade and commerce and the long-term economic success of the city,” Mayor Landrieu said in his press release. “Improving our port’s competitive advantage will mean more good-paying jobs for our residents. Also vitally important is our ability to open up our special riverfront to the public.”
As officials work “together for any legal and regulatory approvals necessary to finalize the transfer of assets,” as the Mayor’s office put it, an additional wharf request could be made.
But, the Mayor better work fast. The Port Board of Commissioners and the New Orleans Public Belt Commission plan to hold special meetings to consider the framework of the swap this week.
This article originally published in the June 12, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
