The organization that runs Savannah’s Trade and Convention Center has completed its legal obligation to fund the deficits incurred by the water ferries that shuttle passengers back and forth between River Street and Hutchinson Island.
So this is the year the Georgia International and Maritime Trade Center Authority needs to look for a more equitable solution to sharing the costs of the operations, authority chairman Mark Smith told his board Wednesday.
“We have been doing this basically by ourselves for 15 years and at a cost of $3.5 million,” Smith said.
One option is to turn the ferries over to the Chatham Area Transit Authority, which already staffs the operation of the boats and recently completed a new $1.6 million CAT intermodal facility on Hutchinson Island as officials anticipate future real estate development on the island.
“There has been a hesitation on our part to do that because we didn’t want to give up control when we had major functions and needed the boats to run on a different schedule or different routes,” he said. “But this is getting to be a very expensive privilege.”
Smith said he’d like to see some ideas other than the “all or nothing” concept.
“The city is making a contribution,” he said. “This was a county project, yet the county has never contributed a dime, even though we have taken the burden off CAT for a decade and a half. So it seems to me the county has a role here.
“Rather than just turning it over to CAT, which is obviously an option, maybe there is another solution we can work out.”
Asked what might happen if CAT took over, Smith said he couldn’t say, as it would no longer be under his authority’s jurisdiction.
Trade center executive director Bob Coffey said one thing CAT might do is charge for the service, which is currently free.
“If we did convey the water ferry system to them, CAT would have the option of charging, which would have a huge effect on the current fare-free downtown transportation system that we put together with all our funding partners,” Coffey said.
A number of options could be explored, he said, including one that would fund basic operations for a 12-hour day and make service a la carte the rest of the time according to specific needs.
“That’s complicated,” Coffey said, “but it would be more fair than it is now and would spread the burden of the operating deficit among the other partners and not just the trade center authority.”
Smith said the trade center would put together a narrative of the service’s 15-year history, including how the ferry operation is funded and an explanation of the deficit — as it moves ahead.
Expansion talks underway
In other authority business, Smith reported the trade center is in talks with the Westin Savannah Harbor, Westin parent Starwood and CSX Realty on the recommendation by PKF Hospitality Research that the best way to grow convention business on Hutchinson Island is to add a 300-room tower to the Westin.
“The addition of 300 hotel rooms on the island will enable trade center management to compete more effectively for a greater number of regional conventions and perhaps a few more national meetings,” Mark Woodworth, president of Atlanta-based PKF, said last week in presenting the results of the study commissioned by the authority in mid 2014.
“We’re making progress but need to accelerate our engagement with the Westin,” he said, adding that he expected to have a more detailed update at the authority’s April meeting. “The first thing we need to do is determine whether the Westin is going to do an expansion or not,” he said. “That will determine if our way forward is with them.”
Regarding the PKF report, Smith said he was surprised that it found the authority should not undertake an expansion of the trade center without the corresponding addition of rooms.
“We currently have a dozen or more large convention clients that love Savannah and love it here but are running out of room, particularly exhibit space and breakout rooms,” he said. “We still need to find a way to address their issues.”
He asked trade center staff to prepare a report on both the number of current convention clients who have asked for more room as well as the number of would-be clients who have expressed serious interest but could not reconcile the lack of space with their convention needs.