The city’s plan to close the Red Hook container port and redevelop the waterfront for a variety of uses seems to be taking another curious twist. Today’s Sun reports that the city is “backing away” from some expansion plans, including adding another cruise terminal, and considering “a dramatic scaling back.” It may even consider keeping the container port open, the paper says. Here are a few excerpts:

The city is backing away from plans to expand the new cruise ship terminal in Red Hook any time soon, a signal, critics say, that amounts to a dramatic scaling back of the Bloomberg administration’s bold plans for that slice of the Brooklyn waterfront…

The residential component of the city’s plan for the waterfront was dropped late last year, and without enough growth in the cruise industry to justify expansion, city officials told The New York Sun that the addition of a new cruise dock is not likely in the near future, though it remains a long-term goal…

The administration also seems to be taking a softer stance about its intention to close the existing container port on the Red Hook waterfront, operated by American Stevedoring, sources said. While the city has wanted to bring a beer and beverage distributor to a space within the container port’s footprint, officials acknowledged last week they were considering moving the distributor, Phoenix Beverages, to another location temporarily, and did not rule out the option of leaving the container port in place, at least in the short term…

That, at least, is today’s version of the status of the plan. It could be repudiated and replaced by a newer update within days, if not hours. Stay tuned.

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