Recent press articles have been lamenting the decayed state of the eastern portion of downtown Bay Street, running roughly from East Street to Eastern Parade. Shopkeepers in this blighted zone complain that with the lack of customers, they cannot make ends meet and must close down or lay off staff. Concerned observers like the Nassau Tourism and Development Board underline all the features that discourage spending by tourists and locals alike: boarded-up store fronts, vacant or collapsing buildings, tacky merchandise in the remaining stores (with a few honourable exceptions), a couple of seedy restaurants and hotels, towering stacks of shipping containers blocking any view of the waterfront – with the result that the whole area has become little more than a dockyard slum.
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The economic cost is too obvious to need calculating. Our competitors, Bermuda, St. Thomas, Cayman, Curacao, all have maintained their harbour front districts as gleaming attractions. Here, the solutions recently put forward publicly are nothing but halfway measures. Granting real-property tax exemptions and duty-free imports for West Bay businesses would be a useless subsidy and unfair to business elsewhere. The demand for more parking space, free or reasonably priced (with no suggestion of where!), combined with more "beautification" of the street with trees, flower beds, etc., is understandable but equally ineffective.
What must be accomplished is a far more radical change, requiring the total reconstruction of several blocks running east from Elizabeth Avenue particularly those on the north of Bay, under a master development plan. The objective would be to create a mixed-use commercial/retail/entertainment complex of structures, parking areas and pedestrian plazas, similar to Bayside in Miami.
The first feature of this reconstruction must be the transfer of our commercial shipping industry to Arawak Cay, clearing the docks, cranes, warehouses, and containers, and freeing up the waterfront to exhibit its natural beauty. The shipping companies will be happy to make this move, and in fact have made extensive studies of how it can be done. Of course, the approval and cooperation of Government will be essential, and we understand that discussions are already well advanced.
Second, many of the present small shopkeepers must face the hard fact that they are simply in the wrong place and have no future on the Bay Street of the future, even with ample parking space. They must give way to more modern commercial enterprises run with the different style and resources demanded by the 21st Century shoppers.
Third, legal measures to seize or demolish structures that do not fit the master plan must be devised, together with ways to compensate the inevitable dislocations – as confiscation, thankfully, is not acceptable in The Bahamas. Impartial valuations would probably show that many of the structures and businesses, in their present state, are worth very little. The best approach would be a specially chartered Redevelopment Corporation with power of eminent domain, funded by Government, banks, pension funds, and commercial property developers.
Finally, enough entrepreneurs in the retail, commercial and entertainment businesses must be identifies and encouraged to buy or lease in the redeveloped centre. Probably some exciting East Bay Street firms would choose to expand their operations in the greatly improved surroundings. Funds received from owners or lessees could then be used to reimburse the cost of dislocations.
This scheme will face many challenges, and it will not be easy to bring completion. But in the long run it is the only solution to our downtown urban decay. It could eventually give us a pedestrian boardwalk/bike path stretching from Prince George Docks all the way to the Paradise Island Bridge.
By Richard Coulson
