The battle for possession of the decommissioned supercarrier Forrestal is now a two-way contest between business interests in Baltimore, Maryland, and Tampa, Florida. Four days before the November 1999 deadline, the USS Forrestal Museum, Inc., of Baltimore filed its application to acquire the carrier from the Navy's Ship Donation Program for use as a tourist attraction and education center. The ship would be moored at Port Covington, an industrial section of the city's harbor a short drive from downtown and within easy access of Interstate 95.
The Tampa group, called the USS Forrestal Sea, Air and Space Museum, filed its application in May, proposing to have the ship towed to a slip on the Tampa Port Authority's Ybor Channel. It is now up to the Navy to evaluate the two submissions and decide which plan would provide the ship with the most appropriate and financially viable venue.
It is still possible that neither city will wind up with the warship. Financial backing, site acquisition, and other hurdles facing both of the surviving camps have made the outcome of the engagement far from certain.
The Florida organization has been troubled by fund-raising snafus, the resignation of its embattled chairman, and engineering questions rising from the fact that the carrier is longer than the slip it is supposed to occupy.
The Maryland group had been drafting plans for a retail development in South Baltimore that would combine tourism on board the Forrestal with shopping and convention space, and a state-owned cruise-ship terminal. So far, however, participants in the Baltimore venture have been unable to secure rights to the waterfront property they are seeking, and the developer initially involved in the project has been pushed aside, purportedly in favor of a hotel developer with gambling interests. That could raise sensitive political issues in Baltimore and in Annapolis, the Maryland state capital.
But at least the final battle lines are drawn. A Pennsylvania group, called the USS Forrestal Naval Museum, Inc., pulled out of the contest in July 1999 without ever filing a formal application and—amid bitter feelings toward leaders of the Baltimore effort—offered its support to Tampa. "Our first priority has always been to save the ship and find it a home," said Forrestal veteran Jimmie Stewart. He headed the Pennsylvania group, which was based in Bensalem, on the Delaware River north of Philadelphia. "We would like to have it here," he said, "but the best thing to do at this point would be to support the Tampa efforts."
In the meantime, the ship remains in "donation hold," moored at the U.S. Naval Station, Newport, Rhode Island. The Naval Sea Systems Command (NavSea) says little about the competition beyond a prepared statement served up by its public affairs office and attributed to Rear Admiral Dennis G. Morral, U.S. Navy: "The Navy is looking forward to donating this magnificent vessel as a tangible reminder of the Navy's role in American history. The Forrestal's proud history will surely commemorate the sailors who served on the ship, as well as showcase naval traditions and heritage."
What's at Stake?
At stake in the competition is the future of the world's first supercarrier. The USS Forrestal (CVA-59) was built at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in Virginia. She was launched in December 1954 and named for the nation's first Secretary of Defense, former Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal.
More than 1,000 feet long and 25 stories high, she was the first carrier designed and built for heavy jet aircraft. She boasted the first originally constructed angled flight deck, which made possible simultaneous landings and launches. Operations were speeded by four deck elevators and four powerful steam catapults. Her eight boilers and four engines could drive the ship at speeds of up to 33 knots.
Commissioned in 1955, the ship had not yet been formally deployed when she was called upon to support U.S. naval forces in the Mediterranean Sea during the 1956 Suez Crisis, when Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal. After a decade of deployments in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean with the U.S. Second Fleet, the Forrestal was sent to the Pacific Ocean in June 1967. There, just four days after beginning combat operations against North Vietnam, a freak on-board ordnance accident (involving presidential candidate Senator John McCain, incidentally) touched off a series of explosions and fires that ultimately killed 134 crewmen, destroyed or damaged many aircraft, and threatened for a time to sink the ship.
The Forrestal was sent back to Norfolk for repairs but returned to duty in the Mediterranean in 1968. She aided rescue operations during a 1973 flood crisis in Tunisia, and in 1981, her aircraft challenged Libyan planes during a crisis between Syria and Israel. In 1991, on what would be her 22nd and final overseas deployment, the ship provided support to the allied forces' Operation Provide Comfort, launching 911 sorties in northern Iraq to protect Kurds who were resisting Iraqi forces under Saddam Hussein.
The ship came to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in 1992 for a 14-month overhaul slated to cost $550 million. But the work was halted the following year in response to congressional budget cuts. The Forrestal was decommissioned and ultimately reassigned to the Ship Donation Program.
At the time she left service, the Forrestal had been commanded by 30 naval officers and served by 130,000 men and women. Of those, 262 died on duty, including the 134 lost in the 1967 accident.
No Love Lost
While the majority of those who have mounted and supported the various efforts to save the ship have been Navy veterans, no love is lost among them. Stewart of the Bensalem, Pennsylvania, organization, and Frank Eurice of Baltimore both are Forrestal veterans, who began their efforts on behalf of the carrier in 1995 with a common goal. But personal differences soon drove them apart, and Stewart launched his drive to bring the ship to Bensalem.
Eurice scoffed at the idea, saying the enormous carrier could never get past the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge on the Delaware River. The Tampa group, he noted, was troubled by past scandal in its leadership. Stewart, even after throwing his support to Tampa, continued to attack Eurice as egotistical and less than honest, and the city of Baltimore as crime-ridden and dangerous. In Tampa, Nils D. Olsson, former chairman of the Forrestal group and former resident of Baltimore, doubted that Baltimore harbor could accommodate a 1,000-foot ship without erecting an obtrusive "wall of steel."
In the midst of all this, the Tampa and Baltimore organizations each are steaming ahead with their own plans and grappling with their own problems.
The Tampa Plan
The $12 million Tampa campaign is now headed by Wayne Schmidt, a former naval reservist with experience in the museum industry. He once led the Intrepid aircraft carrier museum in New York City and the National Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, Missouri. He also opened the Strategic Air Command Museum near Omaha, Nebraska. Schmidt was hired in summer 1999 after the former director, Jack Martin, resigned under a cloud. The Tampa Tribune uncovered details of a business background that included two loan defaults and several tax liens and a conviction for cashing insurance checks belonging to a customer. The disclosures had made it all but impossible for the organization to raise cash, and its financial problems have continued. With no guarantee that the drive will bear fruit, supporters say it has been difficult to raise the half-million dollars needed for initial operating capital, much less the millions more needed to bring the ship to Tampa.
The Tampa group secured a $100,000 line of credit backed by its own board members. But an attempt to raise $150,000 in cash by raffling a $45,000 Jaguar sedan collapsed when the Florida attorney general's office ruled that the raffle was illegal. Potential donors may also have been put off by the financial woes of the Florida Aquarium, a performing arts center, and the Tampa Convention Center. In any case, many were hesitant to hand over cash before the city was assured of getting the ship.
To demonstrate Tampa's support for the project, the venture was preparing to launch a $10 million capital pledge drive early in 2000 to secure cash and promises of cash contingent on the Navy's selection of Tampa, said Museum Chairman John Kerchner. Bob Bashan, owner of the Outback restaurant chain, already has given $100,000. A sale of industrial revenue bonds likely would be used to make up whatever the capital drive fails to produce. They would be repaid from attraction revenues. But Kerchner doubts that will be needed. "I really don't think raising the money will be a problem once we're awarded the ship," he said.
The Forrestal exhibit as conceived for Tampa would include a memorial to all who served on the ship. Included also would be an "Aegis Theater," in which visitors would participate in a simulated interactive naval engagement, and a variety of flight simulators relevant to the aircraft that flew from the carrier's flight deck. Featured would be vintage and modern aircraft displays and tours of the ship's interior, along with overnight adventures geared toward interesting young people in the sea services. The Tampa group is banking on more than 450,000 visitors a year to a Forrestal museum, drawing on some of the 11 million visitors the city counted in 1997. Tampa also is a cruise port, with nearly 170,000 passengers a year.
The museum site is within a mile of two interstate highways and a quarter-mile from the Aquarium, and it would be connected by a trolley to other attractions at the Ice Palace Arena, the Convention Center, and the retail and entertainment center at Ybor City.
But the site has its problems. In addition to the struggles of the Aquarium and Convention Center, the slip proposed for the Forrestal is shorter than the ship. Even moored cater-corner, with her bow flight deck overhanging a harborside roadway, the carrier's stern would extend in the active Ybor Channel. Kerchner does not think this is an issue, but the Port Authority has expressed concern that it would limit the "navigational flexibility" of nearby tenants. The slip also is 75 years old, according to former chairman Olssen, and it would require considerable dredging and upgrading before the carrier arrives. The Tampa Port Authority has asked for more engineering data, said spokesman John Dorrington. It also has asked for an escrow fund to ensure the ship can be removed from the slip if the venture fails.
Then there is the problem of International Ship Repair, Inc., a working shipyard now occupying the slip. It holds a lease good until 2001; it employs 300 workers, and pays $340,000 to the Port Authority in annual rent. "If the Forrestal becomes very viable, the shipyard would have to move. We're looking for an alternative place," Dorrington said. But the museum would have to buy out the shipyard's lease. "We still have a ways to go," the Port Authority spokesman said.
The Baltimore Plan
The Baltimore group's most immediate obstacle is acquiring land. The proposed site at Port Covington is in South Baltimore on the Patapsco River, a mile-and-a-half west of Fort McHenry. The waterfront property, owned by the CSX Corporation, is currently idle. The spot is within sight of Interstate 95, and its slip opens onto a 40-foot-deep shipping channel; the slip itself would require some dredging and refurbishing. The USS Forrestal Museum, Inc., headed by Eurice, has approached CSX, offering to purchase the property. But while Eurice said in July 1999 that he expected to close a deal within days, CSX has proved to be in far less of a hurry.
In August, said CSX spokesman Rob Gould, "CSX sent them a proposal—a site plan and what's involved with the property and what types of things we would be looking for before entering into negotiations." At this writing, no deal is in the works. If the whole CSX property cannot be purchased, Eurice said his group is prepared to buy a 14-acre portion for the ship, or to move its sights to another spot somewhere outside of Baltimore. He would not say where.
The Baltimore consortium remains unsettled. Eurice said the museum had initially allied itself with the Bilt-Rite Corporation, a general contractor and developer from Telford, Pennsylvania, and the Tech Group, Inc., of Annapolis, for engineering. Plans were drafted for a phased construction project, including not just the carrier and museum, but also retail, office, marina and hotel complex, and a state-backed terminal for Baltimore's growing cruise ship trade. The enterprise drew letters of support from the city's mayor and city council and from Maryland Governor Parris N. Glendening.
"We're talking probably over a $200 million investment over a series of years in a phased project," Bilt-Rite Vice President Jim McColgan said in autumn 1999. But he acknowledged that efforts to acquire the CSX property were moving slowly. "That's the hurdle," McColgan said. "There's very little we can do until we have full control of the site." In fact, the talks later broke off, Eurice said. Bilt-Rite is now "kind of out of the picture." He identified the new player as Starwood Hotels and Resorts, Inc., one of the world's largest hotel operating companies. Its worldwide properties include Sheraton and Westin hotels, and the Caesars Hotels and Casinos. Starwood spokesman Katie Meyer, however, said the company is not involved. "No one here knows anything about it," she said.
If it is ever built, Eurice envisions a complex that could attract the lucrative military convention and reunion trade, as well as tourists. In addition to the military and naval museum, with period aircraft, flight simulators, and meeting space, he sees the Forrestal's decks providing an educational and job-training resource for young people. Her flight deck could host downtown Baltimore's first heliport—a service corporate executives have tried for years to establish, without success.
Eurice said the museum complex would draw from the 13 million tourists who visit Baltimore's Inner Harbor attractions annually, according to independent analysts. By National Park Service accounts, nearby Fort McHenry gets 700,000 visitors a year. Shuttle buses would carry visitors the mile-and-a-half from the Inner Harbor, through South Baltimore to the Forrestal.
Eurice said the Forrestal venture would have to get 35,000 people through the turnstile, at $7.50 per person, to break even. "We figure, with 13 million people, with a capture rate of 5%, that's 750,000 people. We will be cash rich at that point.
Navy officials said the evaluation of the two bids for the Forrestal could take as long as 18 months.