A German cargo line that offered to bring the city $1.6 billion in trade
— and with it 400 Brooklyn waterfront jobs — was shunned by
economic development officials who refused to commit the Red Hook Container
Port to shipping operations through 2009.
According to the port’s operator, cargo-unloader American Stevedoring
Inc. (ASI), the Bremen, Germany-based cargo company Hamburg Sud was set
to ship its wares to Brooklyn but is now looking elsewhere after the city
cast doubt as to whether the port would remain open beyond 2007, when
ASI’s lease expires.
Requesting only a letter from the city Economic Development Corporation
assuring them that the port — where ASI is now operating on piers
7 through 10 — would remain active until 2009, officials with the
city authority delayed and finally refused the commitment, said American
Stevedoring CEO Christopher Ward.
“It was the easiest thing they possibly could’ve done,”
Ward told The Brooklyn Papers. ASI had no reason to doubt the city would
produce the letter, he said, adding that he was “perplexed”
as to why it never appeared.
“[Hamburg Sud] didn’t ask specifically for an economic benefits
package,” said Ward, “they simply wanted a letter to be sent
to them saying the city was interested in creating a working waterfront
for five years. And the city chose not to issue that letter.”
Using figures released by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey,
which owns the piers, ASI spokesman Matt Yates told the Brooklyn Papers
that the Hamburg Sud deal was worth $1.62 billion, which he said, “includes
what the value of the goods is worth, what it yields to the taxpayers,
what is resold and what the manufacturing values are worth.”
The German company eventually rescinded its offer.
City Council Speaker Gifford Miller and Councilman David Yassky, who along
with Rep. Jerrold Nadler, want the Port Authority to extend ASI’s
lease, sent letters to Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg
asking them to reconsider comments made at the council hearing by city
EDC Executive Vice President Kate Ascher.
Ascher suggested that the piers north of Piers 12 and 11— including
those now operated by ASI — would be offered to other cruise lines
in the near future. Piers 12 and 11 have already been committed to cruise
ship use.
The mayor’s office did not return calls seeking comment for this
article.
“Even if you believe the cruise ship business is going to sweep the
Brooklyn waterfront, to not secure 400 jobs that are promising immediate
payment for five years — given how long it takes for the large-scale
projects to get built anyway — why give up that which you know is
valuable and interested in coming when you’re not sure what’s
going to happen or that you even know what’s coming?” said Ward,
who took ASI’s reins last October, resigning as Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s
Environmental Protection commissioner.
ASI officials have reiterated their position that both the shipping operations
and cruise lines can coexist and complement each other on the waterfront,
a position that Yassky has echoed in statements to both the City Council
and EDC.
A March 21 article in Crain’s New York Business announced that Hamburg
Sud had signed a deal to dock in Bayonne, N.J., and create 75 to 100 jobs
there. But an EDC spokeswoman said this week that she understood the German
shipping company was going to set up operations at Howland Hook, a container
port on Staten Island.
Spokeswoman Janel Patterson praised Hamburg Sud’s decision to dock
on Staten Island, saying, “I understand Hamburg Sud is going to Howland
Hook, the New York Container Terminal in Staten Island, and we’re
very happy they’re going to stay in the city.”
Inquiries to Hamburg Sud were not returned by press time, but a source
close to the negotiations said the company had settled on New Jersey,
not Staten Island.
Asked about the city’s refusal to commit the Brooklyn piers to shipping
operations for an additional two years, Patterson said, “I can’t
comment on that.”
She added that agreements had been signed with an auto-processing company
and a recycling plant for the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal in Sunset
Park, which together, she said “will create more than 700 new full-time
jobs and more than 600 construction jobs for New York.”
When asked if the EDC concerned itself with maintaining the operations
that exist on the container ports of the waterfront, and the 500 jobs
estimated by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce in earlier testimonies to
already be there, Patterson said, “We’re doing a lot of work
on the Brooklyn waterfront. That’s all I can say.”
Sources told The Brooklyn Papers that as soon as Monday elected officials
would attempt to secure an agreement with the EDC or the Port Authority
to secure either a signed understanding or extended lease committing to
preserve the container port for active maritime uses until 2009.
Ward, who worked for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey before
he headed the Department of Environmental Protection, emphasized that
while shipping in the city wasn’t going away, Brooklyn’s hand
in it just might disappear.
“You could have a vibrant container port over the next five years.
Instead you risk putting piers 7 through 10 at risk to go dark, and to
have in their place nothing but blank space,” he said.
The Hamburg Sud account, which would have brought 60,000 truck-size shipping
containers into the Brooklyn port each year, would have also taken 100,000
truck trips off of the street for deliveries, according to calculations
of container shipment values issued by the Port Authority in January and
figures provided by ASI’s Yates.
What that loss means, Ward said, is product prices rise for New Yorkers.
Asked about the city’s throwing away Brooklyn port business and jobs,
Borough President Marty Markowitz, an avid supporter of bringing jobs
to Brooklyn and a champion of bringing the cruise ship industry to Red
Hook, affirmed, “Brooklyn is always open for business and always
looking for new opportunities to create jobs.”
But Markowitz spokeswoman Jocelyn Aframe said the office was “unfamiliar
with the details of the project.”
Rep. Nadler, on the other hand, said he was committed to keeping the ports
open.
“It makes no sense to close the one remaining port operation on the
east side of the river in Brooklyn,” he said this week. Nadler added
that he would fight “tooth and nail to ensure that the container
port operation remains in Brooklyn.”
Editor’s
note: The print version of the article mistakenly attributed estimates
of the Hamburg Sud deal made by ASI spokesman Matt Yates to a City Council
hearing. Those estimates were given directly by Yates to The Brooklyn
Papers.
