Jacksonville wants in on the booming cruise ship business. The city has plans to build a new port near the historic Mayport settlement. But area residents and fishermen have mounted opposition to the port and the city council is scheduled to make a decision about it soon.
MADELEINE BRAND, host: This is Day to Day. I'm Madeleine Brand.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: And I'm Alex Cohen. In the film "Inkheart," characters leap off the page quite literally and into the modern world. In a few minutes, a conversation with the villain of the film, actor Andy Serkis.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: First, let's try to figure out who the villain is in this next story. The easy answer would be cruise-ship companies, which want to dock in one of Florida's oldest fishing communities. The fishermen who rely on the shrimp in those waters are furious. NPR's Greg Allen has more.</s>GREG ALLEN: Mayport's a small village, just 70 houses or so, and it doesn't look like much, mostly one-story bungalows, a ferry, a lighthouse and a waterfront. But it has history. French explorer Jean Ribault landed here in 1562, three years before the Spanish founded St. Augustine 40 miles to the south. It also has tradition. Some families have operated shrimp boats here for nine generations or more. It's a prime location, where the St. John's River meets the Atlantic. That's why the U.S. Navy built a base here and why Jacksonville's Port Authority, Jack's Port, now has its sights set on the sleepy fishing village.</s>Ms. MICHELLE BALDWIN (Head, Mayport Civic Association): That's the St. John's River. And from where this fence starts, all the way down to where it ends, at the other end is the property, that Jack's Port has acquired.</s>GREG ALLEN: The head of Mayport's civic association, Michelle Baldwin, is walking along the village's waterfront. Over the past several months, the port authority has bought up most of it. Docks and businesses, here for generations, were suddenly torn down. What once had been a thriving waterfront is now vacant land.</s>Ms. MICHELLE BALDWIN (Head, Mayport Civic Association): This is where Matt Rawlins' field dock and ice house was. And then right here was the net shop, where they fixed and made all the nets for the boats.</s>GREG ALLEN: There's little question that Mayport is a village that's seen better days. A decade ago, the town drew up a redevelopment plan that was slow to get off the ground. Nine million dollars was spent on sidewalks, new sewers and lighting. But village residents weren't the only people making plans for Mayport. Jacksonville's port authority identified the village as a prime location for a proposed terminal for cruise ships. The authority's current cruise terminal is several miles down the St. John's River. To get there, cruise ships must sail underneath a suspension bridge. Jack's Ports spokesperson Nancy Ruben says if Jacksonville is serious about developing its cruise industry, the port will have to be moved to the other side of the bridge.</s>Ms. NANCY RUBIN (Jacksonville Port Spokesperson): The newer ships are taller. For whatever reason - the infrastructure, the wow factor, the climbing, hiking structures that they put up - whatever it is, they are taller. To continue to reap the benefits of cruise revenue, to continue to grow the port for the people of Jacksonville, we will need to move east of that bridge.</s>GREG ALLEN: (Unintelligible) leave that much slack in it, right there.</s>GREG ALLEN: On Mayport's waterfront, Will Allen guides his 73-foot trawler, the Miss Lorraina(ph), into the dock. He's 85 years old and has been shrimping in Mayport for 60 years. He's one of the lucky ones. The port authority says it will provide dock space for his boat and three others once the cruise port is complete. But shrimpers say that leaves at least 20 other boats with no place to go.</s>GREG ALLEN: Well, it's going to be kind of rough, all right, for the fishermen.</s>GREG ALLEN: And this has already changed. I guess, there only one fish house now, right?</s>GREG ALLEN: (unintelligible) at the top, that's the one of the roughest thing. It is what we got around Mayport. They tell you if you wanted to move then you are in trouble.</s>GREG ALLEN: The proposed cruise terminal as planned would be much smaller than cruise ports elsewhere in Florida, big enough for just one ship at a time. Sitting on the front porch of her home, Michelle Baldwin says even so, the terminal and cruise ships will tower over the village. She points to where they'll be, just across a narrow, two-lane road.</s>Ms. MICHELLE BALDWIN (Head, Mayport Civic Association): There's never, ever, ever been a cruise terminal that has been built in a residential area. There are cruise terminals that have had residential areas built close to them, but never 60 feet from the front door.</s>GREG ALLEN: Mayport residents sought help from Jacksonville's city council, so far with little success. Councilmen Art Graham chairs the land use and zoning committee.</s>Mr. ART GRAHAM (Councilman, Mayport; Chairman, Land Use and Zoning Committee): I guess the big question comes down to is, if we want to have a cruise ship terminal here or not. And the residents you got to look at is not the residents that live within, you know, a hundred yards of the place, it's all the residents in Duval County.</s>GREG ALLEN: Mayport residents now have most of their hopes riding on a lawsuit. They've gone to court, saying plans for the cruise port violate environmental rules and a special designation that protects Mayport as working waterfront. Greg Allen, NPR News, Miami.