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A Project in Limbo
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A Project in Limbo White Elephant Struggles to Become Cash Cow The question: What to do with 11 acres of urban lakefront containing a defunct coal-burning power plant, an electric substation, a 120-foot smokestack, fuel tanks, two ash settling ponds, asbestos contamination, an oil spill, and a 50-foot-high mountain of coal covering three acres? The answer: Bayfront Centre in Erie, Pennsylvania, a $117 million mixed-use development featuring a maritime museum, a library, an auditorium, a hotel, plus office, retail, entertainment, marina and residential uses. The question is one being faced by cities and utility companies at thousands of sites all over the country. The answer was provided by North American Realty Advisory Services (212-883-0500), a New York-based utility consultant that has completed redevelopments for almost 30 manufactured gas plants and 12 electric generating stations nationwide. Best-Laid Plans Go Awry But like the best-laid plans of folklore, Bayfront Centre has gone awry. Great answers often yield greater questions. The public side of the project the museum, library and auditorium is completed. Where GPU Energy’s Front Street Station generated electricity for 75 years, 4,000 people per day now visit the 92,000-square-foot Erie County Library, the second largest in Pennsylvania. The old turbine building is now the Erie Maritime Museum, home of the fully restored 1812 U.S. Brig Niagara. Government funds totaling $51 million have been spent on or committed to construction and infrastructure improvements. A typical solution for this kind of problem site would have been to clear the land and sell it for its appraised value, hitting up GPU’s customers for the difference. Industrial waterfront with industrial zoning has limited market value, however, and leaving another piece of lakefront property idle would do little for the city of Erie. Moving a Mountain With North American Realty Advisory Services’ help, GPU (610-921-6489) expanded the site to 33.5 acres by acquiring several adjacent properties, including 15 acres owned by the Erie-Western Pennsylvania Port Authority. This process took about two years, during which time the selective demolition and environmental cleanup of the GPU site was completed. Asbestos removal consumed the majority of the cleanup funds, but then there was the mountain of coal to be dealt with. GPU scraped off the top two-thirds of the pile and shipped it to other generating stations to be burned. Half of the bottom of the pile was send to a coal-cleaning plant, while the other half was taken to a special landfill, and the entire three-acre cleanup site was covered with clean topsoil. Then there was a 20-year-old oil spill left by an abandoned marina, where the contamination was sandwiched between bedrock and the lakeside bulkhead. GPU was one of the first to use biological agents to clean up this type of spill. A mixture of microorganisms, fertilizers and water was injected into the earth though a series of wells, and within two years the hydrocarbon content of the soil dropped from as high as 30,000 parts per million to less than 100. Earth Energy for Heating, Cooling Heating and cooling for the library, museum and auditorium now come from the earth as well, via a ground-source heat pump created by GPU. Four hundred wells were drilled down 464 feet in the parking lot across the street from the cultural center. At that depth, the temperature is a constant 52 degrees in Erie. Water circulated through this system provides virtually cost-free air conditioning in the summer, and in winter it provides a much warmer base than the sub-zero outside air, saving considerably on heating costs. City officials are pleased with it, people are visiting, but there is no commercial component. North American nevertheless chose this project to brag about when it was asked in November for examples of what it can do. Kathleen Connolly, vice president of marketing for North American explained that her choice hinged on the entertainment/cultural features of the public sector improvements, and that she focused on that aspect due to the "Entertainment" in E.S.P.’s moniker. "It shows a creative re-use of a problem site. I’m proud of that project," Connolly said. Local Deal in the Wings? Now the project is up for grabs, waiting for a commercial developer who wants to do a project in an area with sub-zero winters and lake-effect snows. The best place to find such a developer may be right there in Erie, and that apparently is what is taking place. As E.S.P. was going to press, talks were underway between GPU and an Erie-area developer, and no one was talking to E.S.P. about it. John Mattern in GPU’s real estate department said on December 14, "I don’t know what I’m allowed to tell you," when asked for the name of the broker listing the property. He did not call back before press time. GPU Energy, the owner of the site, canceled its original deal with Realen Properties of Ambler, Pennsylvania (215-628-3300) and put the 12.5 acres up for sale, as is, meaning a buyer would not be bound to any previous plans for the land. "They (Realen) are a good developer," said Larry Morris, manager of GPU’s business development department in Pennsylvania, "but things didn’t happen within the time frame we wanted." The deal was originally signed in July, 1997, and was extended twice. "When Realen failed to make a required deposit by the deadline of Oct. 1, 1998, we decided that a third extension would not have been beneficial to the Erie community or to GPU Energy," said George R. Repko, vice president of business development at GPU. Realen did not return calls to E.S.P. David Daddario, senior vice president at North American, said his company is out of the deal, though he would like to get involved again. The ball is in GPU’s court now, he said. "They need to work harder on the marketing side. There’s nothing wrong with the property, and there’s nothing wrong with GPU." Jeffrey Spaulding, Erie’s economic and community development director (814-870-1234), said, "GPU tried to be a real estate developer, and it didn’t work." Public funds spent on the project to date add up to some $40 million, Spaulding said, and another $11 million is earmarked for a transportation center and public promenades, bike paths and bulkhead renovations along the waterfront. The commercial prospects for the project remain bright, Spaulding said, if only because the Bayfront Centre site is the only waterfront site available along Pennsylvania’s 40 miles of Lake Erie shoreline. A new highway built in 1990 provides unprecedented public access to the site, which was served only by rail in the past, and 50 percent of the boats docked at the marina are from out of state, he said. Tourists come from Cleveland, Ohio, Buffalo, New York and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (125 miles away). Nearby Presque Isle State Park, directly across Presque Isle Bay from the GPU site, draws 4 million visitors annually and soon will have a water taxi connecting it to the Bayfront Centre marina, making it a short boat trip rather than a 4-mile road trip. Erie Maritime Museum The first new museum in Pennsylvania in twenty years, Erie Maritime Museum opened its doors May 21, 1998. As the new homeport of U.S. Brig Niagara, Erie Maritime Museum offers the story of Niagara as the reconstructed flagship of Pennsylvania and the warship that won the Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812. When in homeport, the ship herself is the major "exhibit." Berthed within yards of the museum, Niagara is visible from the building's bay side picture window. Inside, the centerpiece exhibits of the museum are a former steam-powered electricity generating station and a reconstruction of the mid-ship section of the Lawrence, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's first flagship during the Battle of Lake Erie. The display comes complete with mast, spars and rigging with which visitors can get physically involved, lending to hands-on learning in the ways of sail handling. Another replicated section of the Lawrence was blasted with live ammunition from the current Niagara's own carronades at the National Guard training facility in Fort Indiantown Gap, near Harrisburg. This unprecedented "live fire" exhibit of the Lawrence recreates the horrific carnage inflicted upon both ships and men during the Battle of Lake Erie and throughout the Age of Fighting Sail. Other exhibits tell the stories of the USS Wolverine (previously the USS Michigan), the nation's first iron-hulled warship, and the environmental transformation of the Great Lakes ecosystem. First-person costumed interpreters are featured on weekends and for special events. Also featured is the Niagara Shipwright Shop, which helps support U.S. Brig Niagara and Erie Maritime Museum financially through its retail sales. Volunteers of the Flagship Niagara League staff the shop, which carries a large variety of Niagara memorabilia including prints, photographs, posters, books, clothes and other maritime souvenirs. Completed projects in North American’s portfolio include:
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