After five years of searching, the Port of Everett has a tenant for its Riverside Industrial Park that wants to buy the entire property and build a $100 million lumber mill and power plant that would employ about 200 people.
The deal is far from done – the port is still negotiating a price – but California-based Sierra Pacific Industries has submitted a letter of intent to buy the property and plans a $1 million deposit.
“I’m excited about the opportunity,” said Red Emmerson, Sierra’s president, at Tuesday’s port commission meeting. “I think it’s a good piece of property and would fit us. I feel confident we’ll be able to put something together.”
Sierra has 18 plants in California and another near Aberdeen. It employs about 4,000 people at its plants.
The proposed mill was described as a high-tech operation that would use lasers and computers to get the most lumber from a log. The wood waste produced would be burned to create steam to dry the lumber and generate electricity.
Planned is a power plant that would produce 25 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 25,000 homes. The power would either be sold to the Snohomish County PUD or to a private buyer.
Port commissioner Don Hopkins said he was impressed with a visit to the Aberdeen plant.
“I drove up to the mill, and I didn’t even know it was a mill,” he said. “A log went into a box and out came all this lumber of different sizes.”
The mill would be something of a return to Everett’s early history. Once called the “City of Smokestacks,” the town’s waterfront once was lined with lumber mills.
Sierra spokesman Ed Bond said the new mill wouldn’t issue any smoke. “There are no smokestacks,” he said. “It’s very clean and very efficient. There’s only steam.”
Port commissioner Phil Bannan said the deal couldn’t come at a better time.
“It’s time to get the property in use,” he said. “These guys look to be really good employers. It’s time to get it back on the tax rolls. And, frankly, we haven’t been able to do anything else with it.”
Emmerson, whose father founded the business in 1949, said jobs in Sierra’s mills pay an average of $18 an hour. They also include health benefits with no employee co-payments, a retirement plan and life insurance.
“They can afford a decent home,” he said of his employees. “It’s not a high-class job, but it’s a good-paying job.”
Port director John Mohr said such jobs are just what the port has been looking for.
“This is a difficult niche,” he said. “Most jobs will be local, and they’ll be for people 20 to 30 years old, blue-collar people with young families. Most of the other job opportunities (for the group) are $10 to $12 an hour wages.”
Bond said the company picked Everett for the same reason it chose Aberdeen – a good location and a good work force. “Red (Emmerson) looked at other cities, too, and this property seems to be a real fine fit for what we have in mind,” he said.
While logging has declined dramatically in Western Washington, it’s now on the rebound, Mohr said.
Port lawyer Brad Cattle said the port hopes to negotiate a price and act on the deal fairly soon. A public hearing on the proposal will likely take place at the Feb. 1 commission meeting , he said.
The port purchased the property from Weyerhaeuser Corp. in 1996 and spent two years cleaning up contaminated soil at the site. So far, it has spent $19 million to buy the property, clean it up and prepare for new tenants.
There have been few interested tenants in recent years because of the poor economy. A proposal to use the property as an auction site for damaged automobiles was abandoned after strong public opposition.
Port officials said if the property is sold, they will fulfill a promise to install a public trail along part of the waterfront, then continue it behind the mill on a portion of the 78-acre site.
An estimated 150 log trucks would visit the site each day, most traveling along Highway 529 from the north to the mill site, which is just east of the highway. The finished lumber and trim products would be shipped by rail to the East and Midwest.
Mohr said he was glad the port bought the property and that it now will be back in productive use.
“For 13 years, its primary output was blackberries,” he said. “If we hadn’t acquired it, I’m 99 percent certain it would just have become a railroad switching yard.”
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