Waterfront development still needs an anchor

Any good outdoorsman knows you can spend idyllic hours casting into the water, only to get a thrilling bite on “that one last cast” as the sun sinks slowly on the western horizon.

It’s about one minute to sundown for Buffalo’s Bass Pro plan. Obviously, it’s unlikely they will suddenly decide, after more than two years of hemming and hawing, that casting its line into the Lake Erie shore waters will land anything more than a perch or blue gill.

Build they will, just not here. Among the attractions of such a store were the people from far and wide who would travel to the unique and nonpareil shopping experience, not to mention the emotional jump-start of saving a beloved building like the Aud.

Bass Pro is projecting no fewer than 11 new store openings in 2007, bringing the total number of massive retail outlets to 49. It’s not exactly the pace that, say, Starbucks might be on, but the one-time “Disney World” of outdoor stores is becoming more like Fantasy Island. It’s nice, it’s fun, it’s cute, but one hardly has to pack overnight provisions just to get to one.

Tulsa, Okla., might be why Bass Pro has dipped nothing more than a big toe in Buffalo’s waters. With stores already up and running in Oklahoma City, 90 minutes in one direction, and Springfield, Mo., a little more than two hours in the other, Tulsa’s store, which opened late in 2005, has hardly been the blockbuster predicted.

Seems as though their lease arrangement there is tied to sales; 2 percent of that figure is what Bass Pro pays under the terms of its deal. Supporters argued that would mean at least $1 million a year in lease payments to the public coffers; some suggested it could hit $1.2 million or more.

Last week, Bass Pro wrote out a $63,719 check for its November payment, bringing the 2006 total to $562,000 for the year, half what some had expected. Buffalo’s store would now be snugly wedged between ones in suburban Toronto and Auburn, hardly destinations that require the packing of overnight provisions to get to.

Make no mistake, our waterfront redevelopment still needs an anchor, and not just the one attached to the Naval Park’s battleship. Shopping malls, you might have noticed, aren’t just a series of purse stores and pretzel stands.

It’s no coincidence that the latest artist’s rendition of what the inner harbor should look like doesn’t quite extend over to the Seneca’s soon-to-be-open $125 million teepee of temptation. If you’re one of the few who haven’t figured out that casinos are specifically designed to keep their patrons within their own walls for everything from buffets to beaded buffalos, then you don’t understand why the Senecas picked the spot they did. You’d need a dream catcher to see the meaningful spin-off development this particular casino will bring.

And if Bass Pro is lost, it’s hardly an auspicious start for the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp., which in part was formed specifically to ensure the potential trophy mount got into the boat. And lest we forget, Uniland’s grandiose outer-harbor vision, to the tune of $750 million and which was announced a year or so ago, now already metaphorically sits next to the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The ECHDC’s latest $200 million inner-harbor proposal looks sparkly and colorful and inviting on paper. So has every single other plan put forth in the last 30 years.

It’s equally inauspicious that the group already has admitted that Bass Pro played a major role in drawing up this specific dream; just how damaging to move forward without it remains to be seen.

Bass Pro clearly isn’t the anchor it was once envisioned to be. It doesn’t mean it can’t still work, even at some very meaningful if not slightly less spectacular way, should this 30-day casting period still get Johnny Morris to finally make a hit. If not, the bobber has already gone under the surface twice and popped back up with an empty hook attached.

Bass Pro and the Buffalo Creek Casino represent two more large ones that got away. Someone needs to land a big fish. And soon.

(Brian Ackley is a columnist for the Weekly Independent Newspapers of Western New York. To provide feedback on this column, visit our Web site at www.wnynewspapers.com. Opinions expressed here are those of the author.)