KINGSTON SHIPS AHOY!
City waterfront study might be expanded to focus on accommodating large vessels
KINGSTON, N.Y. >> A waterfront resiliency study could be expanded to explore what is necessary to stabilize the shoreline of the Rondout Creek to accommodate large cruise ships.
Kristen Wilson, director of the city’s Office of Grants Management, asked the Common Council’s Finance and Audit Committee on Wednesday to consider authorizing the borrowing of an additional $27,470 to expand the scope of the Kingston Waterfront Resiliency Project design.
Wilson said the additional funding would allow the city’s consultants to design a shoreline stabilization project that would accommodate the larger ships that already are coming to Kingston.
“We want to be able to design shoreline stabilization to accommodate these larger boats,” Wilson said.
She said the project is looking at the shoreline from the U.S. Route 9W bridge to the end of the Cornell Steamboat building on East Strand. It is approximately 1,200 feet of shoreline, Wilson said.
At Wilson’s request, the Finance and Audit Committee advanced a resolution to authorize the additional borrowing. The resolution must still be voted on by the full council, which next meets on March 5.
Reuben Hull, from the
McLaren Engineering Group, the design consultant for the project, said under the original contract, his firm was looking at essentially a “replacement in kind” of the docks and bulkheads along the shoreline. He said as the design was being created, the project advisory committee brought the issue of the larger ships to the forefront.
Hull said his firm instead will have to look at designing a project that could accommodate larger ships, some upward of 300 feet long. From an engineering perspective, those ships have a larger impact on the marine system in the area than the smaller, private pleasure boats that use the docks now.
“When one of these 300foot ships is brought in, it changes the whole dynamic of the waterfront in terms of the structural engineering,” Hull said. He said the impacts from the smaller boats are “incidental.”
Robert Burhans, president of the board of trustees for the Hudson River Maritime Museum, said the museum, which is at the edge of the Rondout Creek, has been acting as the city’s cruise ship terminal for the past 10 years because the larger vessels cannot get beyond the U.S. Route 9W bridge to the city docks. One of the boats that has visited was almost 270 feet long and five stories high, he said. Burhans said the larger boats can accommodate 250 to 285 passengers.
Jim Sperry, also with the museum, said that 270foot boat was in Kingston 14 times over the past year. He also said heavier bulkheads are critical for the larger boats but that there are parts of the Rondout shoreline that could benefit from a lighter design.
“We’re getting more and more opportunities for larger vessels to come in here,” said Alderman Steven Schabot, D-Ward 8. He said the new design is critical to the continued development and stabilization of the waterfront.
The initial design project was estimated to cost $120,000, with $60,000 coming from a state Department of Transportation grant and $10,000 from inkind staff time. The other $50,000 was from borrowing authorized by the Common Council in 2016.