JEFFERSONVILLE — This one could have staying power.
The Jeffersonville Redevelopment Commission with a 5-0 vote approved last-minute changes to the downtown marina plan, and it may be the most liked design for the project yet.
Mayor Mike Moore presented the changes at the Wednesday meeting with a new sketch from engineers and a hopeful city council approval in hand but still no cost estimate.
That’s because the latest version was drafted in a matter of days.
A reduction in price is one of the selling points to the city council, discussed over a phone call between Moore and City Councilman Ed Zastawny Monday night.
“We need five votes from the city council, and that’s basically what this amounts to,” Moore said of the design changes.
The two hope that the main differences — eliminating the 22 permanent docks and adding seven transient slips and reducing the length of the road — will lower the $3.5 million price tag while opening up the marina to more than dock renters.
The plan would double the space between docks allowing a boat to anchor on both sides of one dock.
“I think that marina belongs to everyone in Jeffersonville,” Moore said.
He said that in the past, the rental docks became a “territorial issue” among boat owners and the general public.
The new plans will add an 8-foot decorative concrete sidewalk and 500 feet of greenspace for gatherings.
“I think it’s going to have more of a hometown feel to it,” Redevelopment Commission President R. Monty Snelling said.
The increase in transient slips would also drive economic development, Moore said.
“Those transient slips are people with money in their pocket that want to come shop or eat in Jeffersonville,” he said.
Moore also wants to add a fishing pier, which may be constructed later with approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The pier would double as a deflector for river debris and a walkway for visitors.
A permit for the whole project has yet to be officially granted to Jeffersonville, but Moore said he met with Corps officials Tuesday morning and is confident a permit will come soon even with a change in plans.
What Moore proposed Wednesday may only be the first phase of the project. The city can ask the Corps to extend the building permit at the end of three years if it wishes to add on.
Snelling said he likes that the project isn’t “set in stone.”
“The good thing about it is we can expand from that point,” he said.
Board member Jamie Lake was supportive of the latest designs.
“I think it makes perfect sense,” he said.
Lake said he wasn’t sure the demand for rental docks was as high as the original designs predicted.
“I think 50 of them or so is just a really excessive number, so I like the fact that it’s reducing,” Lake said. “And if the demand is such that we need to build more, we can build more.”
Other loose ends that Moore said he intends to tie up are ensuring some of 150 trees required by the state don’t block the river’s view and that the dock height accommodates different sized boats.
He said he hopes a cost estimate will be ready by the city council’s next meeting Oct. 6.
“I can’t guarantee you we can get nine votes, but I think we can get five,” Moore said.