LORAIN — Local officials spent 90 minutes Tuesday on the Black River with state and federal officials pitching the idea of an international port for Lorain and testing the waters on funding.

“I think it went well,” said Councilman Mitch Fallis, D-at large. “We got a chance to display our riverfront to some political people and explain our vision for an international port. I think everyone thought the idea was doable.”

Councilman Dennis Flores, D-2nd Ward; Anne Hill, regional director with Gov. Ted Strickland’s economic development office in Cleveland; Beth Thames, deputy state director for U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown; Steve Morey, president of Team Lorain County; Mark Ballard of U.S. Rep. Betty Sutton’s Lorain office and several others rounded out the sightseers.

Fallis, long a supporter of Lorain as an international port said it helped him focus.

“The bottom line was the federal government is not willing to put out $42 million initially on something they don’t know is going to work,” he said. “We talked about using existing assets to take baby steps to start a shipping process. Specifically, using the Finger Piers (at the mouth of the Black River) as a temporary dock to demonstrate some success that international shipping would be a viable business out of the port of Lorain.”

The city would need to spend “probably less than $200,000” to fix up the Finger Piers on Lake Erie as a temporary port while the permanent site on the Black River near the intersection of state Routes 611 and 57 was being built, Fallis has previously said.

Since it looks like state and federal funding won’t be available for start-up costs, Fallis said the next step is to give the state and federal lawmakers what they want — success.

“We’ll speak with city officials and/or private dock owners to see if they’d be willing to open up their facilities to ship products out internationally in order to demonstrate success,” Fallis said.

Lorain Port Authority Executive Director Richard Novak was part of Tuesday’s river tour and said he, too, believes an international port in Lorain will someday be a reality.

“I feel optimistic,” Novak said. “We need to step carefully because it is a big task and it’s going to take a considerable amount of funds, but I think it would be a tremendous opportunity for our community.”

The cost to build a permanent public port could be as high as $50 million and could be funded with a 1-mill county-wide property tax levy, state funds and federal grant money, Fallis has previously said.

“I’m confident one day it will be a reality,” Fallis said. “We’ll be able to obtain state and federal funding to build a permanent location.”

Contact Alicia Castelli at 329-7144 or acastelli@chroniclet.com.

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