The city is backing away from plans to expand the new cruise ship terminal in Red Hook any time soon, a signal, critics say, that amounts to a dramatic scaling back of the Bloomberg administration’s bold plans for that slice of the Brooklyn waterfront.

The expansion of the cruise ship terminal, which would welcome additional tourist-filled vessels to New York City, was an integral part of the city’s plan to refashion the waterfront area into a $300 million-plus job-producing complex of maritime-related uses, restaurants, a hotel, and hundreds of nearby apartments.

Red Hook, a formerly industry-heavy swath of western Brooklyn that lacks strong public transit, has been the site of a number of high-profile new development projects in the past two years, including the completion of a Fairway supermarket and the construction of an enormous Ikea furniture store.

The residential component of the city’s plan for the waterfront was dropped late last year, and without enough growth in the cruise industry to justify expansion, city officials told The New York Sun that the addition of a new cruise dock is not likely in the near future, though it remains a long-term goal.

The administration also seems to be taking a softer stance about its intention to close the existing container port on the Red Hook waterfront, operated by American Stevedoring, sources said. While the city has wanted to bring a beer and beverage distributor to a space within the container port’s footprint, officials acknowledged last week they were considering moving the distributor, Phoenix Beverages, to another location temporarily, and did not rule out the option of leaving the container port in place, at least in the short term.

An executive vice president at the city’s Economic Development Corporation who was long in charge of the waterfront project, Kate Ascher, left her post in recent weeks.

The city denies that there have been any dramatic changes to the plan, and contends the long-term vision for the Red Hook waterfront, known as Piers 7–12, is the same. The city does not consider the container port to be an efficient use of jobs, a spokesman for the Economic Development Corporation, Andrew Brent, said, and the existing cruise terminal at Pier 12 is slated to receive about 50 ships a year.

In testimony before the City Council in December, Ms. Ascher cited a strong immediate demand for cruise ships, an apparent attempt to leverage action on the plan.

“We have cruise ships that are ready to come to Pier 10 to create more jobs than are there now. I’m talking about getting rid of the container activity that is there now,” she said, according to a transcript. “All I’m saying about timing is, the time to do that is now and we are investing funds in doing it.”

The city’s plan for the piers, which the president of the Economic Development Corporation, Robert Lieber, called a “top priority” during a council hearing last week, is part of the administration’s larger efforts to open up area waterfronts to the public, as the city creates a network of new esplanades, water taxis, and developments along the water’s edge.

However, the proposal for Piers 7–12 has received criticism from elected officials, most notably City Council Member David Yassky of Brooklyn and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who claim it would be premature to close down the container port before establishing a new one in Brooklyn. They say job growth from the cruise industry has not been as robust as expected.

“Certainly the reality has not turned out to match the initial claims,” Mr. Yassky said. City officials said late last week that they intend to create 700 new jobs on the piers in the next five years. About 500 of those would come from Phoenix Beverages, which is already located in the city, but the administration worries it will relocate outside the area if not offered a spot on the piers.

The job numbers are a reduction from earlier estimates. In 2004, Ms. Ascher said at a council hearing that she expected more than 600 new jobs on the Brooklyn waterfront by 2005. The city now says the cruise terminal employs about 250, only about 15 of whom are full-time.

Mr. Yassky said he was encouraged by the city’s consideration of placing Phoenix Beverages on Pier 11, as did Mr. Nadler.

A spokesman for the American Stevedoring, Evan Thies, said in a statement the container port is an “important piece of the regional economy.”

The city intends to start the public review process in the late summer or fall. The plan would require approval from the council and the Planning Commission.