Give the Corporation of Hamilton this: its plan for the Hamilton Waterfront shows a willingness to think boldly and there is no doubt that it will get people talking and thinking about the future of Hamilton.

That?s all to the good. This newspaper has long felt that the current use of the waterfront, at least from the parking lot beside the Ferry Terminal as far as No. 6 Shed, is a terrible waste of one of the most spectacular pieces of real estate in Bermuda, if not the world.

From the uninspiring sheds used to greet cruise passengers to the acres of parking lots, it pales in comparison to the innovative uses that cities like New York at South Street Seaport, Baltimore and Boston with Quincy Market have put to their waterfronts.

It is a waste of a tremendous resource that could be a great boon to the city and tourism alike.

Having said that, the plans proposed by the Corporation seem to be far too ambitious and it is not clear that very much consideration has been given to the environmental impact or the effect such a development will have on the Island?s infrastructure.

Indeed, at a time when Government is spearheading its sustainable development agenda, this project looks just the opposite.

Evidently no studies have been done on the effect that reclaiming land in the harbour will have on the environment, or on its natural ability to flush itself. That could ? and the emphasis is on could ? lead to heavy silting in the harbour, which would be disastrous in the long term. One need only look to Castle Harbour to see what can happen when land is reclaimed. The waters there are a barren desert 60 years later.

Nor, apparently, has any thought been given to the effect of an additional 1.5 million of square feet of offices, retail and hotel space will have on the City?s sewage system. But one would imagine it would have to be considerably upgraded at some additional cost.

While the plans call for underground parking to replace the parking being lost, the ground beneath Front Street is notoriously porous, and digging or creating watertight parking in the area would be, one imagines, amazingly expensive.

Cost is a key issue. The Corporation estimates that the project will cost $639 million, with the public sector putting up $122 million of that sum and the private sector providing the rest.

The betting here is that the project will cost considerably more than that by the time it is done. As stated by the Corporation, the project could take years, so Bermuda is looking at an inordinately expensive and time consuming project. Even if you take the Corporation?s figures at face value, it is almost the equivalent of all of the construction work done in Bermuda between 2002 and 2004, a three-year period when when $618.5 million worth of work was done.

For that reason, the potential for superheating the already overheated construction industry must be taken into consideration.

And these costs do not include the cost of moving the Hamilton container Docks to an as yet undecided location. On that point, Hamilton remains the best possible port in Bermuda. The only viable alternatives are Morgan?s Point, which Works Minister David Burch wants to retain as a land bank, and the North Shore, somewhere between the Ducking Stool and Tynes Bay, which is extremely vulnerable to bad weather.

Having said that, some of the ideas in the Corporation?s plan are good and worth considering. But taken as a whole, it just seems to be too ambitious. It?s worth noting that the seaport areas discussed above primarily used existing land and warehouses. The Corporation should do the same.