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Welcome To:
THE HISTORIC LOUISVILLE MUNICIPAL BOAT HARBOR
Serving The Ohio River Boating Community Since 1936
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The Harbor is believed to be have been the oldest continuously operated municipal harbor on the Ohio River and among the oldest remaining purpose built inland recreational harbors in the entire country. As evidenced by its inclusion in a series of 1940’s Illinois Central Railroad postcards that also included St. Louis Cathedral, New Orleans; The Mississippi River Bridge at Vicksburg; and Confederate Park in Memphis; it was once considered a major attraction and an engineering marvel. It continued to appear on various nationally circulated postcards till the early 1980's. In spite of municipal indifference and neglect, its ingenious design has survived the test of time and the whims of the mighty Ohio for 70 years.
From 1956-2005, The Louisville Harbor Association, a non-profit group, had leased the property from the City of Louisville (now Louisville Metro). For 50 years, its members were solely responsible for the daunting task of maintaining and operating The Harbor. This was done through a membership system based on seasonal slip rentals and community involvement. The only requirement for membership was a love of boating, sense of community, self-sufficiency, and respect for the awesome power of the Ohio River. The LHA always fulfilled its financial responsibilities to The City and most significantly acted as a concerned steward of this hidden public treasure.
Isolated from the mainstream by construction of the interstate system in the 1960's and overshadowed by the recent appearance of Louisville Waterfront Park and other downtown civic improvements, The Harbor has totally disappeared from the community radar screen. Even though thousands of Louisvillians drive past it every day, most non-boaters don't even know it exists. Nonetheless, with its ingenious far sighted original design, it has survived 14 of the 20 most severe Ohio River floods on record, and has remained an enduring touchstone to the Ohio River Boating community for 70 years. Its fascinating history shows that it was, and still is, the original Louisville Waterfront Park. It is ironic that its descendent threatens to do what the relentless Ohio River never could, erase it from living memory.
In October of
2004, The Louisville Metro Council voted to accept the recommendation of Mayor
Jerry Abramson and The Louisville
Waterfront Development Corporation to award a contract to build a
residential/commercial development in the area adjacent to The Harbor formerly
Having seen similar proposals come and go during the last 20 years or so, most local rivermen were initially skeptical. After all, numerous studies and surveys over the years have shown the area to be environmentally, historically, and archaeologically sensitive in the extreme. It soon became apparent however, that the political horsepower behind this particular project was unprecedented and that it would proceed regardless.
The only inquiry made to the boaters who had successfully operated The Harbor in the face of extreme adversity for the past 50 years was to ask the price of slip rentals. The obvious advantages of tapping the considerable knowledge these men and women have to offer was completely ignored. After years of resolute commitment to the continued viability of this unique place, the only official communications with these hard working citizens was a polite Oct 2005 termination letter from the WDC and a later invitation from the developer for first pick of the prohibitively expensive boat slips. After 70 years of continuous service to the community, our previously viable and sustainable Louisville Municipal Harbor is now closed, overgrown, and filling with mud and debris.
Since there are few affordable moorings in the area for large non-trailerable vessels, this loss has had a very negative effect on the traditional boaters. After four generations of contributing to the local culture and economy by pursuing this admittedly expensive and difficult activity, many average citizen boat owners of modest means or on fixed incomes have been driven off the river and forced to sell their boats. For them, and their families, this governmental initiative ends a fulfilling lifelong activity and threatens to end the traditional boating lifestyle that has been a fixture of the local river landscape since Louisville's earliest days. Sadly, Louisville has now effectively turned its back on the very group that has kept our historically tenuous connection with the Ohio River alive in our time... the local recreational boating community.
In late September 2005, WDC submitted a construction permit application to The Corps of Engineers for design approval. In spite of previous governmental reviews documenting its obvious historic significance, the plans called for the total demolition and excavation of this undeniably unique landscape in favor of an inappropriate Miami style marina. Every trace of the original structures and grounds were to be totally destroyed. This prompted us to request and obtain official federal recognition as a Citizen Consulting Party to the COE regulatory process. This designation gave us a seat and a voice at the closed meetings and negotiations that would determine the ultimate fate of this floodplain construction proposal.
As part of this federal review, The National Historic Preservation Act mandates that cultural and historic preservation issues must be considered. We maintained that The Harbor was at least an important local landmark and locally legislated preservation of historic structures through adaptive use should be employed. Rather than accept this reality, we were astonished when WDC and the developer chose to ignore the local regulations and actively oppose any and all historic preservation requirements for The Harbor. in light of the fact that WDC is a local governmental agency and could effectively enforce it's will at the local level, we then made the case that The Harbor was potentially eligible for listing on The National Register of Historic Places. This took the debate to the federal level. This was also aggressively, and in our opinion, unethically opposed by WDC and the developers. ( see HARBOR PRESERVATION ISSUES) The end result was absolutely no preservation measures would be required in the marina design.
Besides being totally insensitive to its rich history and the people who lived it, the current redesign plans for The Harbor show a marked lack of insight into small craft navigation and local river knowledge. It is painfully apparent there has been little research into the physical limitations our unruly and often violent Ohio River imposes on harbor operations at that location. Numerous physical, operational, and navigational safety problems in the proposed design have been identified through public comment to The Corps of Engineers and the U S Coast Guard. (See Our Official Comment and Additional Comments ) So many in fact that it is obvious little engineering study other than artists renderings and the calculation of potential profits was used in its preparation.
Early in the regulatory process, the deputy director of WDC, Mike Kimmel, admitted to this observer that the marina layout was "problematic" and that no specialized marine infrastructure expertise had been employed in it's design. Nonetheless, few of the serious public welfare, navigational safety, and operational issues raised during the U S Corps of Engineers review have been addressed in the currently proposed design. Although work on the marina itself is only in its initial stages and the operationally sound layout of our Historic Louisville Municipal Harbor remains more or less intact for now, the disastrous removal of the protective Harbor Island and inappropriate redesign is still slated for imminent implementation.
The current marina design is a drastic departure from that approved for the failed Falls Harbor development of the early 90's and there is no evidence that the current plan is technically sound. In fact, many feel the opposite is true. Many knowledgeable local boaters feel removal of the protective Harbor Island and absolutely inappropriate layout of the slips themselves will create serious navigationally safety problems and doom operational viability. It is our informed opinion that the local boating community will not accept this design in the numbers necessary to produce a sufficient economic base to guarantee financial viability in the long term. Those who do buy into the extremely overpriced slips will face serious undisclosed financial consequences as any future owners association will be subject to regular and substantial assessments to recover from moderate flooding events and a major event will likely lead to insolvency. Rather than consider alternatives that address the issues through adaptive use of the current layout, (see DESIGN ) the WDC has chosen to use artist renderings and curb appeal as their marine asset management template.
Another glaringly inappropriate development activity discovered during our research was the fact that as a navigable public waterway of the United States, the Towhead Channel is under the jurisdiction and protection of the federal government and administered by the state as a public trust. As a result , it and can not be subdivided and sold to private parties. Just the same, WDC and the developers have taken proprietary possession of this federally protected public waterway and sold portions of it as privately deeded boat slips. This unlawful activity should have been blocked at the regulatory level, but WDC has managed to deflect attention from this issue through additionally egregious proposals that make their previous position seem palatable. (see Jan 23 2007 - Waterfront Development Proposes Closing the Towhead Channel.)
The continuing negative effect unenlightened local governmental experimentation and victimization of the boating public has had on the local marine business community has also not been adequately considered. Concerns by long existing recreational boating firms in the Ohio River Corridor have been ignored while outside interests have been allowed special access. The result has been unfair business competition underwritten by Metro through the policies of the WDC. The fact is that the economic impact of recreational boating in KY is about one half of that in the surrounding states... largely the result of governmental indifference towards the boating community and ignorance of the effect official policies have on the economic dynamics of this activity. The governmental arrogance driving the current situation was recently summed up by one long time local marine businessman: “The WDC lords over the river as though it was their private property and we just don’t count”. (see Oct 3 2006 - Island Plan has Some Worried )
Recent articles have raised further questions on the role Louisville Metro has played in sponsorship of this design. We now know that in spite of repeated WDC assurances that "extensive environmental studies" were performed for the failed 1994 project and these showed no environmental problems with this design as proposed, excavation of fill material from The Harbor for site preparation of the upland residential component has been abandoned due to a fear of riverbed contamination. (See Jan 6 2008 Riverpark Place Plans Altered ) The rational conclusion is that no documented evidence of the environmental appropriateness of this design exists and WDC simply mislead local, state, and federal regulatory agencies during the various environmental reviews.
Sadly, the inappropriately misleading and aggressive political pressure applied by WDC to circumvent the public airing of the many controversial issues has resulted in this project working its way through the regulatory process based on misdirection and omission. (see Jan 8 2007 - The U S Coast Guard Calls for Public Hearings on the Proposed Marina Design ) In early March of 2007 the developers announced COE Permit approval and groundbreaking for the design. This has shaken our previous beliefs that the Corps of Engineers was immune to political pressure and dedicated to serving public interest and safety in a thorough and objective manner, evidence suggests this is not the case To date, most of the Louisville Waterfront Development Corporation legislative and public representations on the many contentious aspects of this proposed development have proven to be false. Since WDC and their Board are not subject to impartial public accountability, the blindly inappropriate municipal patronage of this initiative will likely continue.
Although we believe renovation, expansion, modernization, and controlled development is desirable, we also feel that haste and the desire to move forward ay any cost is counterproductive. What has been lacking throughout this initiative is an effort on the part of the developers, especially local governmental agencies, to adhere to the spirit, if not the letter, of the original WDC RFQ and concepts of Cornerstone 2020 . These documents repeatedly stresses the desire for a reconnection of the community to the Ohio River Corridor and the overriding consideration of the public's best interests. Instead, we have seen these key requirements increasingly diluted and minimized in favor of "bigger is better" while public criticism has been suppressed. When public input was forced upon the developers through the Federal Regulatory process. these citizens concerns were minimized, ignored, and trampled.
We originally voiced no particular objection to the residential component of this initiative but research into the many related issues in defense of The Harbor and the inappropriate WDC opposition to transparent public review has forced us to reconsider. This government sponsored development initiative has circumvented numerous local, state, and federal regulatory measures meant to protect the public's best interests, so many in fact, that the rationality of the entire proposal be questioned. Besides those issues already mentioned here, there are many others. These include egregious treatment of Native American interests, misrepresentation of market demand, and subversion of floodplain management prohibitions meant to protect the public... all skillfully hidden from public review by Louisville Waterfront Development Corporation and their powerful political, business, and media allies. These issues are discussed in more depth HERE.
We urge you to visit our HISTORY page which contains information heretofore unavailable. It was compiled by scouring various public archives and gathering oral accounts from local rivermen, boaters, and others, We have managed to compile an illustrated narrative history of The Harbor from 1935 to approximately 1985. This work will at least leave a documented record and raise awareness of this unique place. Hopefully it will also encourage Louisville Metro officials to reconsider and insist on a more thoughtful approach for this true Louisville landmark.
Thank You
Visitors So Far
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