TAMPA — United Caribbean Lines CEO Bruce Nierenberg hopes to one day establish ferry travel to Cuba. He can picture ferries sailing from Port Tampa Bay.”We’ll choose the port that give us the best economics,” Nierenberg said.
Cuba is not the only potential disruption to an uneasy nine-month truce between Tampa Bay’s two cargo ports. Tampa’s decision weeks ago to build its own fruit warehouse did not sit well with Manatee, which says it’s the state’s largest fruit importer.
New economic opportunities, it seems, could generate new tensions between the two ports. Still, the peace seems to be holding — for now.”We’re taking the high road here,” said Manatee Port Authority chairwoman Carol Whitmore.Tropical fruit is one of the fault lines running between the two ports.Tampa’s port was once famous for its banana docks. But that cargo dried up, and in 2009 Tampa tore down its dilapidated fruit warehouses.
In fiscal year 2014, Port Manatee handled 425,000 tons of fruit. Manatee has five refrigerated warehouses and receives avocados, bananas, limes, melons and pineapples, mostly from Costa Rica, Guatemala and Mexico.But Tampa wants back in the game, and Manatee has long feared that Tampa will go after its customers.
Relations between the two ports were already at a low ebb last year. Then the Tampa Port Authority hosted a global pineapple conference in March 2014 — and physically blocked a Manatee official from attending. Tampa, by the way, does not import pineapples.
So in August, the former secretary of the Florida Department of Transportation himself brokered a truce between the two ports in neutral territory: St. Petersburg. Both sides pledged greater cooperation. But Tampa Port Authority CEO Paul Anderson also offered his blunt assessment of the realities facing the state’s ports.
“It’s a clear misnomer to think there’s no competition between regional ports,” Anderson said at last year’s port summit.That competition is heating up again: The Tampa Port Authority’s governing board voted March 16 to spend $20.8 million to build a refrigerated warehouse to store perishable foods.
Three days later, Manatee Port Authority board member Vanessa Baugh did not hold back.”We have tried to abide by what the state asked us to do,” she said during the board’s March 19 meeting. “But we need to realize that in business, not everyone is aboveboard and honest.”
The Tampa Port Authority is using $10.4 million in matching state funds to build its fruit warehouse. That concerns Manatee Port Authority CEO Carlos Busquera. He said FDOT officials have made it clear that state funds are not to be used to help regional ports compete against each other over the same customers.
“I would hope that Port Tampa Bay is not pursuing our customers and building a refrigerated facility just to move cargo around,” Busquera told the Tampa Bay Times. “(The state) would be concerned if we’re using their money to subsidize private industry by using state money to lure customers from one port to another.”
Tampa Port Authority spokesman Edward Miyagishima said it is not negotiating with any of Manatee’s current customers.”No, not at all,” he said. “We are creating a new line, new opportunities, for fruits and vegetables to enter through Florida and not competing whatsoever (with Manatee.)”
