EVERETT – Two major new container ports on the West Coast have prompted the Port of Everett to completely rethink its future in the business.
The ink isn’t even dry on the Everett port’s new comprehensive plan and already director John Mohr is scotching the idea of a major pier expansion for containers that would also reposition a new industrial park on the Snohomish River for a staging area for the shipments.
“I’ve directed our staff to refocus our effort away from (a) container-centric (plan) to one break bulk (odd-sized cargo) that includes containers,” Mohr said in a recent interview.
Because the Puyallup Tribe and the Port of Tacoma are about to launch a major container effort and another is planned in the Portland, Ore., area, Everett shouldn’t expect to be a big player, Mohr said.
“It doesn’t make it practical to think the port has a major role in containers,” Mohr said.
In a comprehensive plan just unveiled to the community, Mohr acknowledged that the port’s consultant had “put forward a very aggressive development of containerization at the port.”
One idea would have extended the port’s South Terminal way into Puget Sound beyond piers 1 and 3.
“We need to back off and look at what the market is bringing,” Mohr said, noting he has already directed his staff to the put the Riverside Industrial Park back on the market. After having trouble finding tenants for the property, the port had decided to use it not for industry, but as an intermodal yard, an area where containers could be barged or trucked to await rail cars for shipment.
Mohr said he expects the port to “go flat out” on marketing the industrial property. He’d prefer that one person take it over for a coordinated development rather than have it parceled out to many tenants.
Either way, the decision could put permanent limits on how involved the port gets in container shipping. That’s because containers require plenty of dock space for ships and a large upland area to store the containers.
The port has very limited upland space.
“There will still be container cranes down on the dock and we still plan on rebuilding things (extending the docks),” Mohr said. “It’s just that the scale will be diminished. With these new facilities coming in these expansions wouldn’t have to take place anyway.”
Mohr stressed that any expansion at the port would have to come from market studies that show business would support the changes.
He noted that at a recent public meeting airing the new comprehensive plan, a number of people seemed shocked by the container expansion proposals. He noted that the document was to say to the community, “Over a 10-year period, this is the maximum footprint you can expect to see.”
It wasn’t a project, it was a concept, he said.
Now even the concept will be smaller.
“Without some sort of intermodal support you can’t build out the terminal,” Mohr said. “There will be a smaller footprint for the marine terminal for evermore.”
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