Moving the port will cost $600 million, take 20 years, and leave broken promises in its wake

Yet one piece floats on: the relocation of Cleveland's port. This 130-acre site, nestled between Browns Stadium and the confluence of the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie, is the industrial space where behemoth ships pull into docks, toting steel, ore, and other cargo — remnants of a long-forgotten boom.

But with the help of glossy promises from a glossy businessman — and with almost none of the public input about which leaders once boasted — moving the port 60 blocks east has quietly become the Amended Plan to Save Cleveland. If they can just get the port to East 55th Street, port and city leaders say, it will suddenly generate 50,000 jobs and $2.5 billion in investments, and transform the port into a shipping powerhouse.

The plan, in typical Cleveland fashion, is long on talk and short on . . well, everything else. The only sure things: It will take a long time, cost a lot of money, and do a lot of good for local developers — especially, of course, the former chairman of the port's board.

Behold, a lakeside look into a murky (and expensive) future.

Cleveland, the International Gateway!
What the port's saying: If you've ever spent an afternoon on the lake, you've seen them: colossal vessels, forging their way toward the mouth of the Cuyahoga. Those ships carry, for the most part, heavy machinery and bulk products like iron ore and steel — leftovers from the previous century. But moving the port will help change that, says Adam Wasserman, the polished salesman who moved from England last year for the $283,000 job of port CEO.

Moving the port east, Wasserman says, will give it the space to attract more container shipments — the large metal boxes that move 90 percent of the world's smaller cargo. That will pave the way for a new industrial district on the lakefront, with easy access to both rail lines and highways.

This isn't a modest shift. It would change the entire nature of the port. But both Wasserman and his vice president, Steve Pfeiffer, tout Cleveland as a place tailor-made to attract container shipping. "The ports of New York and Montreal will reach capacity in six to nine years," explains Pfeiffer. "They won't be able to handle the projected growth the shipping industry is seeing with container shipments."

In other words, Cleveland could become the prime destination for container ships that move from the Atlantic Ocean, down the St. Lawrence Seaway, and into the Great Lakes. And the St. Lawrence has room for more traffic, Wasserman explains.

"We could be the poster child for transportation into the Great Lakes," he says. "Cleveland can become an international gateway."

What's the port smoking? As dreamy as it may sound, Wasserman's idea — the notion of making Cleveland a competitive container-ship hub — does have roots in reality. As gas prices rise, container shipping will become more efficient, says Richard Stewart, professor at the Great Lakes Maritime Research Institute in Duluth, Minnesota. "There is also an advantage of greening your supply line," says Stewart. "Ships pollute far less and consume less fuel."

But for Cleveland, it won't be so simple. For proof of that, Wasserman need only look at the very study his board commissioned.

In 2006, the port paid $75,000 to Martin Associates, a consulting firm that advises large ports like Oakland and Seattle, to assess the potential for attracting container ships to Cleveland. When they finished, the consultants issued Cleveland a stern caution.

Cleveland's port is a nonplayer in the container shipping market, which is dominated in the United States by oceanside ports like New York and Seattle — ports that won't simply let Cleveland cut into their business. And there's a reason the St. Lawrence Seaway has room for more ships: It's open only nine months of the year, which makes it difficult to attract a steady carrier business. Plus, to get to Cleveland, containers from giant oceangoing ships would have to be transferred to smaller ships that can maneuver through the seaway and into the waters of Lake Erie — an endeavor that costs precious time and money. And even if the Seaway can handle more ships in the future — thanks to global warming, experts believe it just might — Canadian ports perched along its shores may compete aggressively to steer more ships their way, the consultants warn.