The Delta Queen is coming to Kimmswick – that’s a certainty, officials say – but apparently, it would take an act of Congress to bring the 90-year-old steamboat to Jefferson County this year.
“We’re working hard at it,” said Cornel Martin, president and CEO of the Delta Queen Steamboat Co. “I’m looking forward to having the Delta Queen steam into Kimmswick, blowing the whistle and steaming its calliope.”
In the meantime, the company plans to open a land-based restaurant in the former Old House restaurant site in Kimmswick, with a target to open in the next seven to 10 weeks.
Martin’s company bought the Delta Queen, which has spent much of its life as an excursion boat but most recently was a floating hotel, bar and restaurant, with the idea of offering trips up and down the Mississippi River and on other inland waterways.
In September 2015, the company announced that Kimmswick will be its home port.
While work is underway to prepare the infrastructure to accommodate the Delta Queen, Martin said the paddlewheeler’s short-term fate will be decided not in Kimmswick, nor in Houma, La., where the boat is docked, but in Washington, D.C.
For the Delta Queen to be allowed to cruise again, the company first must secure an exemption to the 1966 Safety of Life at Sea Act, a federal law that prohibits overnight excursions on wooden vessels.
The law was passed in response to an ocean-going wooden cruise ship that caught on fire. In response to the deadly accident, Congress specified that only boats made of noncombustible materials could carry people on overnight excursions.
The Delta Queen is built of wood and has a steel hull.
At the time the law was passed, the Delta Queen was granted an exemption, which was renewed until a previous owner allowed it to lapse in 2008.
“Getting the exemption is the key,” Martin said, “and if you’re paying attention to politics and to Congress, you know that not a whole lot is going on. This isn’t a Delta Queen issue; it’s a Congressional issue.
“All our plans are hinging on getting the exemption. We’re still optimistic we’re going to hear something by the end of the year.”
Martin said his company has performed some renovations to the boat to prepare it for its next chapter in Kimmswick, but he’s waiting on the green light from Washington before finishing the job.
“We don’t think it’s wise to spend a whole lot more on her until we know what use she will have,” Martin said. “What needs to be done if she’s cruising will be different from if she’s docked and is used for something else.
“If it passes Congress, we’ll obviously get started right away,” Martin said of completing renovations. “If not, we won’t really be able to say until the end of the year. We’ll have to assess what happened and whether it would be likely to pass early in 2017. If not, we’ll have to take a look at Plan B.”
Plan B, he said, would be to use the Delta Queen as a floating, but stationary, hotel until an exemption is granted.
“That’s the only use that would generate the kind of revenue we would need,” he said. “The first priority is to have her cruise, so we’d hate to have to pull that plug unless we’re convinced that an exemption won’t be coming soon.”
Port Authority involvement
Jon Selsor, president of the Jefferson County Port Authority, said he had expected that the Delta Queen would be brought to Jefferson County later this year.
“This has been kind of frustrating for me because things are so slow when you’re dealing in the government and bureaucratic world,” he said. “I’d hoped by this point that we’d be further along, but things are progressing, even if they’re inching along ever so slowly, they are inching along.”
And, Selsor said the Port Authority, itself, has accomplished a lot since the September 2015 announcement that the Delta Queen would come to Kimmswick.
Under the agreement with the boat’s owners, the Port Authority agreed to provide a docking facility as well as offices in the former Old House Restaurant building.
He said the Port Authority bought about 11 acres of riverfront property, south of the confluence of Rock Creek with the Mississippi River, from Kevin Kraemer for $325,000.
The Port Authority also purchased the Old House property for $325,000, he said. Both were bought using matching grants from the state for port authorities to buy land and make infrastructure improvements, he said.
The 20 percent local match ($65,000 for each purchase) was provided by the Jefferson County Council, which voted last fall to extend a $400,000 line of credit from its economic development budget to the Port Authority for the Kimmswick project.
The council added another $50,000 to that line of credit this year.
With the property acquisitions completed, Selsor said the Port Authority is now turning its attention to the work on the riverfront.
“In the first phase, we need to build a dock that they can pull into and that phase will include the infrastructure needed – sidewalks, parking, so that they can get supplies and people in and out of the boat,” he said.
Selsor said engineers have been directed to build several possibilities into the plan to develop the site, including a contingency to have a stationary Delta Queen hotel moored at one place while still building a docking facility that can accommodate other cruise ships.
“We might have to go that direction (stationary) temporarily, but we expect it to cruise; that’s always been our primary idea,” Selsor said. “But there are options and the engineering study will allow us to put those options in place if we need to.”
Even if the Delta Queen is not allowed to cruise, Selsor said, Kimmswick might be a port of call for other lines.
“They can use the same dock and set up their schedules so that more than one boat isn’t at Kimmswick at the same time,” he said.
Future phases are also planned for the Kimmswick port, he said.
“The next phase will be to make that area more presentable, so it will look less basic,” he said. “Perhaps down the line there will be some expansion. We’ll have many options (on the forthcoming engineering plans) on where we need to go in the multiple phases.”
State kicks in $1.4 million
The price tag for the port development?
“We’re not sure at this point, but we’re hearing roughly $500,000 to $1 million, depending on what we’ll need to do,” Selsor said.
The Missouri General Assembly recently approved a bill that would allocate $12 million in the state’s 2017 budget for port activities around the state, with $1.4 million designated for the Kimmswick project.
That money, Selsor said, also would require a local match, so he has advised the County Council that the Port Authority may ask for its line of credit to be bolstered.
“The County Council has expressed a desire to see this project come to be, and I don’t think there will be much dissension,” Selsor said. “There will be healthy debate, I’m sure, and that’s good. But I think everybody agrees that the county is in a good position here. We have the ideal location for a business like this. And I’m sure they see that this project has the potential of delivering much more in economic impact for the county and the region than it will spend.’
Selsor said the dock eventually will provide income for the Port Authority.
“At first, while they’re just getting up and running, Delta Queen won’t be charged for use of the dock, but as they get their operations up, they’ll be on a long-term lease that will provide income for the Port Authority,” he said.
New restaurant coming
To the west, there’s also activity at Second and Elm streets, where the former Old House Restaurant will be given a new life.
Martin said his company plans to open a restaurant on the first floor, with corporate offices on the second story of the approximately 6,000-square-foot building.
“We’ll be giving folks a chance to get a taste of what the food will be like on the Delta Queen,” he said.
Martin said an executive chef and bar manager have already been hired.
“They’re both from the St. Louis area,” he said. “We’re looking to hire all local people.”
Selsor said the restaurant will benefit the Delta Queen in several ways.
 “Having a restaurant there serves three purposes – one, it can generate some revenue that will offset the lease payments (paid to the Port Authority, for the building). Two, they can train food service staff who will be on the boat, and three, they can test out menu items that they’ll be serving on the boat.”
Martin said the addition of the restaurant also will serve another purpose in the short term.
“I understand that folks are wondering whether this project is still viable, if we’re coming. We want to reassure people we are,” he said. “We’re opening a restaurant as soon as we can to let people know that we are committed to the region.”
He said the restaurant will require the hiring of 30 to 35 employees in addition to the 170 or so needed for the Delta Queen itself. That number includes a corporate staff of about 21.
He said he hopes the restaurant to be named Port of Call can open by the end of July or in early August.