Officials from the Oliver Hazard Perry Shipyard announced last week they want to bring a decommissioned US Navy ship to the Bayfront.
However, not everyone is on board with the idea.

The ship would be about 455 feet long and would be a floating museum and a place for U.S. Navy veterans to host events and celebrate their history.
The first part of the three-phase process is complete and the ship could arrive by the fall of 2022.

“We’ve got amazing attractions on the Bayfront and we’re bringing more in,” Mathieu Sanders, a member of Board of Directors for Oliver Hazard Perry Shipyard and Navy Veteran said.

Sanders said it will be great for tourism and gratifying for our local navy veterans.

“The sailors and marines that worked on and around these ships, it became part of them so to have something like that here is going to mean so much for our veteran community and then also the extended veteran community like the Air Force, Coast Guard, and the Army,” Sanders said.

He said this will be a meeting spot for veteran organizations and a just a comfortable environment for veterans like himself and others like Stephen Craker.

“It will be really great to have something like that,” Craker, a service coordinator for Veteran's Leadership Program said. “I can show my kids part of history and let them know kind of what dad did when he was in the service.”

This sounds appealing for many people because the ship will attract tourists and be a good place for veterans, but some people disagree and think this is a bad place for a Perry class frigate. Richard brine, a fisherman isn't too fond of the idea.

“I think it’s going to have a major effect on fishing and parking,” Brine said.

He likes the idea but not the location and think it'll block access for bucket-fisherman in one of the most popular areas to fish, not to mention the size of this ship.


Brine said he doesn't want to lose access to fishing and said there aren't a lot of other places to fish that aren't already blocked off and thinks something like this would be better suited in another part of Erie.

“I think that money would be better spent really building a pier for it east of here,” Brine said.