Mobile mayor says opening waterfront is ‘not a maybe; it’s a must do’

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - Mayor Spiro Cheriogotis is eyeing a significant reconfiguration of Water Street, which he said cuts off the rest of downtown from one of the city’s most important assets – its waterfront.

Millions of dollars in development are transforming that waterfront, from a pedestrian plaza with statues of Mobile’s Hall of Fame athletes to a new train stop to major changes at the National Maritime Museum of the Gulf.

An overhaul of Cooper Riverside Park is nearing completion in the next few months, and private developers plan to build River Walk Plaza, a complex with a luxury hotel, condos, offices, restaurants and entertainment venues. It is slated to go right on the Mobile River.

But Water Street is a barrier. Fast-moving traffic makes it difficult for people to cross on foot.

“Getting Water Street more pedestrian friendly – it’s not a maybe; it’s a must do, for me,” Cheriogotis said this week. “If we’re truly gonna unlock our waterfront, open us up to more tourism dollars, making Water Street a more pedestrian friendly corridor is a must do.”

The city is in the early stages of developing a plan to narrow the street and slow vehicles. The Mobile City Council in September awarded an $829,923 contract to Volkert Inc.

But it is complicated. The federal government has a role to play because Water Street connects two different interstate highways. And any changes must take the long-planned Mobile River Interstate 10 bridge project into consideration.

Cheriogotis said he met this week with Federal Highway Administration officials, who asked for studies exploring whether those changes can be made safely.

“I’m probably going to go back to them with a little modified asks,” he said.

James Gordon, a spokesman for the Alabama Department of Transportation, told FOX10 News that the agency helped set up the meeting between Cheriogotis and federal transportation officials but, otherwise, had no role. He said he understands why the city wants to make changes.

“It makes sense,” he said. “But we’re not the decision maker.”

If and when the city comes up with a concrete plan, officials will have to figure out how to pay for it.

“We’re certainly going to look for any grant dollars or anything else that can help us do that,” Cheriogotis said.

Read more: Mobile mayor says opening waterfront is ‘not a maybe; it’s a must do’

Providence police admit Brown University mass shooter ‘could be anywhere’ as manhunt drags into 5th day

Rhode Island authorities admitted on Wednesday that the Brown University gunman “could be anywhere” and that they have “zero” information on a possible motive as fear and criticism mount after five days of searching for the killer.

Providence cops have gotten so desperate for new leads that they released blurry photos of someone who might have come into contact with the shooter — even as they insisted they aren’t discouraged about the slow pace of their investigation.

Officials provided what little updates they had during their latest press briefing Wednesday night, during which Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha got defensive at times and the local police chief offered up contradictory information about their probe.

“No one’s discouraged,” said Neronha, pledging that an “enormous amount of energy” is being devoted to the case, and vowing that the still-at-large suspect accused of killing two students and wounding nine others “will be caught.”

Providence Police Chief Col. Oscar Perez called the ongoing search for the suspect in Saturday’s mass shooting “the most intense investigation going on in this nation” that will require the public’s assistance as well as “good old-fashioned police work” to crack.

“We are using every resource we have to find this suspect and bring him to justice,” said FBI special agent in charge Ted Docks. “Whether the subject has left the state or even left the country,” he assured.

Reporters peppered Perez with questions about evidence uncovered during the investigation, the chief initially saying they’ve “found no items of interest so far.”

But Perez later said after conducting extensive searches both inside and outside the academic building where the shooting took place “we have both seized and found physical evidence.”

A department spokesperson did not immediately respond to an email from The Post seeking clarification.

Neronha grew combative with a reporter who was pressing him about why some security footage collected from Brown was not made public.

“If we get a better image of who committed this crime you’ll have it. There is no effort to preclude the public, online investigators, investigators in the press from getting to the result faster than we can,” the AG said. “We are giving you the best evidence we can to identify this person.”

At a press conference earlier in the day, Neronha said authorities have “zero” information regarding a potential motive in the killings.

It’s been five days since the brutal slayings on the Ivy League campus, and the only leads made public so far are a handful of grainy security camera stills and video showing the apparent suspect walking the streets of Providence both before and after the shooting.

Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said another victim has been discharged, leaving one hospitalized survivor in critical but stable condition and five others in stable condition.

Brown University Vice President for Public Safety and Emergency Management Rodney Chatman told reporters that there was no security posted at the Barus & Holley building when the gunman opened fire, saying the lack of security presence was “typical for that academic space.”

Criticism has also started growing about how an elite university with an $8 billion endowment had no security cameras where the killings took place.

Even President Trump has started to raise questions: “Why did Brown University have so few Security Cameras? There can be no excuse for that. In the modern age, it just doesn’t get worse!!!” he posted on Truth Social.

Brown University’s Providence campus has around 1,200 security cameras, according to president Christina Paxson, but the Barus & Holley building, which was completed in 1965, only has cameras at the front part of the building, which was renovated around five years ago, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha told reporters Tuesday.

“So, there’s the back part of the building, the old part, and the front part, the new part,” Neronha said.

“The shooting occurs in the old part towards the back … and that older part of the building, there are fewer, if any, cameras in that location, I imagine, because it’s an older building.”

The 220,000 square-foot, seven-story building houses the School of Engineering and the Physics Department. It includes 117 laboratories, 150 offices, 15 classrooms, 29 laboratory classrooms and 3 lecture halls, according to the university’s website.

Brown campus security did not respond to an inquiry by The Post about the apparent gaps in camera coverage, or whether they plan to install additional cameras in the wake of the mass shooting, in which students Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, and Ella Cook, 19, were killed.

The Elizabeth Hazard Sturges House, which serves as the school president’s official residence, appears to have several security cameras installed despite being built in 1922 and sold to the University in 1947, the Brown Daily Herald writes.

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