Brian Sharp

@SharpRoc

Steering his pontoon down Irondequoit Bay, Ken Strimple leaves behind one future housing development and heads toward another.

The Bay Bridge shrinks in the distance as he cruises the open water talking about his all-purpose marine business, Rochester's waterways and, ultimately, about fishing.

This is a Great Lake city bisected by a river, crossed by a canal and sporting an expansive and picturesque bay. The Genesee River cascades over waterfalls in the heart of the city and cuts a wide path through the gorge heading north. Lake Ontario and its tributaries represent a world-class fishery, drawing visitors from all over. Sailboat races hosted by The Rochester Yacht Club are similarly renowned.

Yet, Strimple is having to educate and build a customer base for his boat repair and rental, floating docks, bait and tackle shop.

"We have a fishery that rivals Alaska, but people, for some reason, they don't know how to fish," said Strimple, who also runs charters and has entertained fishermen from as far away as Australia.

"It's mind-blowing," he said of how underused and underpromoted the water is.

Here? "People golf."

That may be changing.

More than $200 million in development is planned or just getting underway along the bay and Lake Ontario. RSM Newport Marine, Southpointe Cove, Lighthouse Point, and Waterfront Rochester at the port promise hotels and pools, restaurants and high-end condos and new or expanded marinas.

More is in the works along the Genesee River and canal, where efforts range from algae cleanup to a central entity to promote and manage the port, to the possibility of zip-lining at Upper Falls.

Up on the bay, they poured the foundations last week for the first luxury condos on the former site of the Newport House — the first hotel on the bay back in the late 1800s (at one time, there were 11) and, ultimately, the last.

"There has been more opportunity for development on the water recently," said Newport developer Steve Mancini. "Waterfront is precious. Places like Toronto have done a great job. Rochester has a fantastic opportunity now. The next two or three years are going to be exciting."

'Water is magic'

On Memorial Day weekend, people typically flock to the region's waterfronts. Strimple spent the week getting his fleet of more than 20 watercraft cleaned and ready for Bayside Boat and Tackle's official start to the season. Over at the Yacht Club, they are readying for the Commodore's Fleet Review, a parade of boats, beginning at 3 p.m. Monday.

Sure, there is a boating community, just as there are people who fish. And yes, we are rather fond of our water features. But water hasn't been the draw for a long time.

"It has never been a main selling point," said Don Jeffries, president and CEO of VisitRochester, though arguably it had more prominence when the bay and lakefront both dubbed themselves the "Coney Island of the West."

"A lot of times, we overlook (the water) and what the economic impact is."

The "blue economy," as some call it, encompasses not just housing, recreation and tourism, but also growing industries of water technology and education. Water cleanup and restoration is estimated to return $3 for every $1 invested, said John Austin, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and director of the Michigan Economic Center at Prima Civitas Foundation. In Michigan, the economic impact of water-based activities is estimated at nearly 1 million jobs and $60 billion annually.

"Water is magic," Austin said.

Milwaukee was one of the first Great Lakes cities to reorganize itself around water. Today, Austin said, water is the new brand for a city that used to be known for beer and Harley Davidsons.

The Milwaukee River, once polluted and hidden behind warehouses, is cleaned up and lined with riverwalk cafes. City leaders found they had 200 businesses in water technology, began promoting themselves as a water center, grew the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Freshwater Research Center and formed a water council, a business leadership group.

The key to developing the waterfront is to ensure public access as well. Such is the case in Chicago, considered the gold standard for maximizing private waterfront development while reserving 26 of its 32 shoreline miles for public use. Michigan, meanwhile, has more than 80 municipal marinas, so many that along the western coast of Lake Michigan, you are never more than a few hours drive from an access point.

Clean water

Being on the water is one thing. Having water you want to be on is another.

Out in the middle of Lake Ontario, the water is sparkling clean. But near the shore where people wade, swim and paddle, it can be a different story.

Scientists cite numerous reasons for the often-poor water quality near the shoreline and the frequent closures of public beaches, but the biggest problems are buildup of bacteria and rotting algae.

Locally, several micro-initiatives have tried to address these propblems.

To lessen the impact of the buildup of cladophora and other algae at Ontario Beach in Charlotte, Monroe County will be installing piping and a pump to suck algae-filled water from the beach and dump it into the Genesee River, where currents will carry it into the lake away from bathers. The system is to go into use this summer or next spring.

The city and county have undertaken other palliative steps at Durand-Eastman Beach just to the east, installing a filter system and a detention basin to remove bacteria from a creek that flows onto the beach there, forcing protective closures from time to time.

Reduction of bacteria counts at beaches all along the lakeshore will take a series of projects to control stormwater runoff and tighten up any flagging sewage treatment systems. Officials at the state Department of Environmental Conservation say it will be a slow slog.

More problematic at this point is addressing algae in a systematic way, said Jeff Myers, director of monitoring and assessment in the DEC's division of water. Algal growth can be fueled by an overabundance of phosphorus and other nutrients, but Myers said there isn't a scientific concensus yet on exactly how that happens and to what extent other factors share blame for the proliferation of algae.

Until that's resolved, he said, it won't be possible to begin a broad effort to target nutrient sources for reduction. For now, individual projects to reduce nutrient amounts by improving farm and land management practices, controlling stormwater and tightening up sewage plants will have to suffice.

Along with cleaning up the water, there is the expensive proposition of cleaning up the land.

Much of the lakefront and bayfront property already is claimed by homeowners. What's left, particularly along the riverfront, has myriad environmental issues. Across the Great Lakes region, many cities saw the water for its utility, lining the banks with industry and manufacturing, leaving a legacy of brownfields today.

In places like Buffalo, the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority took ownership of considerable acreage along Lake Erie in the 1950s, reportedly anticipating expanding the busy Port of Buffalo until the St. Lawrence Seaway opened. Today, local and state leaders are working to redevelop a massive swath of the harbor at the terminus of the Erie Canal, shifting those long-entangled lands to development agencies, turning a worn industrial route into a tree-lined parkway, and investing $53 million building a central wharf, boat slips, pedestrian bridge, restaurant, museum and amphitheater.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently designated 190 acres of the outer harbor as the first state park in Buffalo, with a $17 million commitment for facilities.

Closer to home, developers in Greece are eyeing the old Odenbach property off Dewey Avenue and Ling Road, at the base of the Round Pond some distance inland from Lake Ontario. Once a World War II shipyard, then a Cold War bomber and missile factory, then a scrap recycling center and finally a Superfund site, the 33½-acre property may re-emerge as a shopping plaza.

Elsewhere, Lighthouse Pointe, a long-discussed development proposal on the Genesee River just inland from Lake Ontario near the O'Rorke Memorial Bridge, did its final groundwater testing last week. Part of their riverfront development site is an old landfill.

Details have to be worked out, but the idea is to build 200 apartments and condos, a promenade, an improved marina, and possibly a hotel. The initial investment would be $50 million, including environmental remediation, growing to $100 million when complete. On the west side of the river outlet is the city-led port project with a new public marina just getting under construction and a $77 million proposal for a 96-room "resort hotel" with a restaurant, pool, conference facilities, and roughly 120 condos and 50 townhouses.

Lighthouse developers see a synergy, a day when water taxis ferry people from one side of the river to the other.

"To think we could make our port a destination, a real attraction with just one piece," said Lighthouse attorney Alan Knauf, "to me doesn't make sense."

Finding the unique

When it comes to the new construction, each developer talks of creating a destination and the difficulty in navigating the layers of federal, state and local government agencies that each have some stake in the approval process.

The seeming development boom is in part because projects have been held up in that process for years and are just making their way out.

At the southern edge of the bay near Bazil restaurant, developer Danny Daniele and his team bought the Southpoint marina in 2000, and have been working on plans the past four years to expand it and add more transient slips, a swimming pool, a clubhouse and two restaurants. They still are waiting on permits. Construction could begin in the fall. Work began last month on the apartment buildings rising on the hillside behind.

"I would hope that in the next 10 years, we'll see more amenities around the bay and around the lake," Daniele said. "When you are on a boat, you like to go places. And the more options you have, the more enjoyable that experience is."

The city has spoken with Lake Ontario port cities from Cobourg and Clayton to Sackets Harbor and Oswego and sees opportunities to build reciprocal relationships to boost tourism.

A harbor management plan in the works includes a component for promotion and marketing.

Rochester is not the only place with a waterfront in flux. Most places are "struggling like crazy, trying to figure out what their focus should be," said Stephen Burnett of Great Lakes Cruising Coalition, which had a brief run at the port but stopped coming because a lack of dredging (now underway) made the port impassable.

"I would say many towns are still in the process of finding their waterfront," he said.

Port development plans have again met with considerable pushback, seen as too big, too high-end, sapping needed parking.

The place is largely defined these days by a sprawling parking lot. But the development design diagrams "look like some weak, lame, modern architecture," admits Gregory Weykamp, principal with the city's preferred developer, Edgewater Resources. His firm produced those diagrams but as part of a bid document never intended to be public.

In four to six weeks, Weykamp said, he hopes to present designs that reflect the architecture of the port's glory days. He has pictures of the old Hotel Ontario and met last week with local historians and others.

"There is not a lot of really unique (locations) out there, but when you come into a place like Niagara-on-the-Lake, for example ... there is a distinctive feel," he said. "Charlotte has glimmers of it, and it had it in the past."

The goal is to capture that in a new design and bring it back, he said. Structures will be flexible, so ground-floor residences can convert to shops or vice versa.

"Really what we want to do is make sure the buildings can have multiple lives," he said. "We want to see that kind of flexibility so the project can evolve with the community."

BDSHARP@DemocratandChronicle.com

Twitter.com/sharproc

Includes reporting by staff writer Steve Orr.