Main Street Journal: On the River: Ever Done Any Boondoggling?

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The following article is taken from the January 2010 issue of the Main Street Journal. Click “Subscribe Online” above to start your subscription.

On the River: Ever Done Any Boondoggling?
By: Joe Saino

W. C. Fields would feel right at home as a member of the past City Councils or as part of the previous Herenton Administration. In the classic movie, the Bank Dick, Fields asks a customer if “He ever went boondoggling”. (The definition of boondoggling is engaging in worthless activities). The Beale Street Landing Project which is proceeding fits this definition perfectly. As previously planned (with the since deleted land bridge) and as presently revised, this is one of the dumbest things that has ever been foisted on the overburdened taxpaying public.

Back a few years, if you went to the website of the Riverfront Development Corporation, you could have read the following. “Approximately 50 stops are made by three major vessels each year, not including local excursion boats and special annual or one-time visits.” Now look at the condition of the excursion boat industry.

The riverboat cruise business is disappearing. The Majestic America Line steamboat company in Seattle is going out of business. Two years ago, Majestic America acquired the New Orleans-based Delta Steamship Company and three steamboats — the Delta Queen, the American Queen, and the Mississippi Queen — that docked in Memphis en route to Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Baton Rouge. That leaves RiverBarge Excursion Line and its floating barge hotel as the only overnight touring boat on the river. However rising costs and economic conditions have forced them to curtail all operations for 2009.

Now we have the latest bombshell, an $8.9 million increase in the cost of the steel work raising the projected cost of the Beale Street Landing to $35 million plus. It is time to step back and take another thorough look at this project. We need an independent audit of past moneys spent and where we are in current commitments. In talking to Friends for our Riverfront and other historical riverfront voices, they seem to agree on several points.

We need a Riverfront focus as Memphis and the Mississippi River are one and the same.
We need to preserve the history of our riverfront including the early explorers, the founders of our city, the pre civil war and the post civil war river history.

We need to restore the cobblestone riverfront landing as was originally intended but was sidelined by the RDC.We need an agreement on a new plan by the formation of a Riverfront Conservancy group to make a plan that has broad public support, contains no self interested parties and with the objectives of a lower cost, lower maintenance, historically accurate and publically usable and accessible riverfront .

I can envision at least one or more good restaurants on the west side of Mud Island overlooking the power and beauty of the real Mississippi River. Also I can envision a reworking of the old Cossitt Library Building with a riverview restaurant on the top floor, a river historical room on the second floor and an open air public space on the ground floor to be used by the public for picnic lunches and relaxation. Call me crazy, but there has to be a better and less expensive solution than the present RDC plan.

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