by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
SS Marine Ventures, Inc. has been chosen as the City’s sole provider of water taxi service for the downtown area.
Owned and operated by Greg and Donna Samuels, SS Marine topped three other water services — Safe Harbor Haven, Inc., River Cruises, Inc. and Bass Marine Taxi, Inc. — to get the contract, which goes into effect June 1 and runs through Dec. 31, 2004 with a three-year extension option.
After several years of having a free enterprise system for a service that wasn’t working (customers and Landing store owners often complained of inconsistent service, among other things), the City abolished the ordinance that pertained to the service. In March, the City issued requests for proposals. After being graded in 10 categories worth a total of 100 points, SS Marine came out on top with 76 points. River Cruises was second with 68 while Bass Marine (59) and Safe Harbor (57) trailed.
To Samuels, the decision to go with his company made sense.
“I think it’s justified,” said Samuels. “We’ve earned the right. We have been out there since 1993 religiously. I feel like we provided the best service as far as reliability and keeping our equipment up. We have good people on board and we survived some crazy pricing and crazy times.”
Per the new water taxi ordinance, the sole provider had to be determined by May 31. Baughman said now that that has been accomplished, the trick will be to get service started by June 1. Samuels says that won’t be a problem because he’s already in business and prepared to enlarge his fleet whenever necessary.
“Right now, I’m basically under contract for three brand new boats,” said Samuels. “We may have to play catch up a little, but we know how to go about it in a prudent way. This is an opportunity to run the business the way it’s supposed to be run.”
The water taxi runs essentially in a loop from the Landing to several locations on the Southbank and back to the Landing. A couple of new stops, at Berkman Plaza and the Adam’s Mark, will be added in the near future. The hours of operation will vary depending on the day and what special events are taking place. From Sunday through Thursday, the service will run from 11 a.m. until 9 p.m. On Friday, Saturday and holidays, it will run from 11 a.m. until 11 p.m. During football games at Alltel Stadium and other special events downtown, the service will start at either 11 a.m. or three hours before kickoff, whichever is earlier, and run until 9 p.m. or three hours after the end of the game, whichever is later. During the week, Samuels will be required to have at least one 25-person boat on the water and on weekends and holidays at least two boats capable of carrying at least 60 people total.
The only obstacle left for SS Marine is for the decision to be approved by the City’s Awards Committee. That approval is expected this week.