Published November 2002

Charting course for success
Marina redevelopment, military work
part of port’s economic strategy

By John Wolcott
SCBJ Editor

No longer one of the West Coast’s leading log export centers, a victim of shifts in international trade, the Port of Everett is well into redeveloping the character and magnetism of the city’s industrial waterfront to create new growth and prosperity.

Despite setbacks in their plans for alternative markets — a small container-handling facility was established but never landed an important Japanese shipping contract and development of the port’s Riverside Industrial Park in north Everett has been slowed by the downturn in the economy — innovative port commissioners and Executive Director John Mohr are moving ahead with marketing the port district’s assets on new fronts.

“Logs are a commodity that has dropped precipitously over the last 10 years. We used to do two to three ships a week, now we may average one to one-and-a-half ships in a month,” Mohr said.

Instead, Mohr is concentrating on a master plan for redevelopment of waterfront property between Lombardi’s restaurant and the public boat launch at 10th Street, extending along West Marine View Drive on its east boundary.

“We want to create a neighborhood that works,” said Bert Mears of Chicago-based Maritime Trust, the developer that is drafting the North Marina plans for the port. David Evans and Associates Inc. of Everett, a local partner with Maritime, is also involved in the design of the development.

Everett port commissioners — Phil Bannan, Jim Shaffer and Don Hopkins Jr. — believe the 65-acre North Marina redevelopment could attract as much as $200 million in private investment to create a new marina, add waterfront housing, office buildings and retail shops; emphasize marine-oriented businesses; and increase public access to the water-front.

In past years, the success of developing the waterfront for commercial uses already has been proven with the creation of Marina Village and its hotel, offices and restaurants adjacent to the Navy base and a newer development that includes Lombardi’s restaurant, the Inn at Port Gardner, a West Marine store and other businesses on West Marine View Drive.

Major segments of the North Marina project are expected to include:

• About 1.5 miles of public walkways and bikeways, viewpoints and public plazas for concerts and other events. Parking also would be greatly expanded.
• Additional restaurants and retail shops.
• Some low-rise office buildings.
• Roughly 500 to 600 housing units that would take up between 11 and 13 acres of the 65-acre marina area.
• Redevelopment of the public boat launch and park off 10th Street, with the addition of a child’s playground.

Now past the comprehensive-plan stage, the port is negotiating the next step with Maritime Trust before beginning work on the permitting and development plan sometime in January. The Moss Adams accounting firm is in the negotiations and due diligence process. Mohr calls the North Marina project “by far, the largest single project the Port of Everett has ever been involved in.”

The first construction on the six-year project is expected to begin next fall, providing a payroll for workers estimated at $35 million each year. When it’s finished, the development could add as many as 2,500 jobs to the work force, with average salaries of $44,000 a year, according to studies related to the plan.

One indication that the port is on the right track is that demand for yacht-size berths in the Puget Sound area is already so great that port officials have decided to move ahead with development of a $15 million, supership-size marina for 80 to 90 luxury craft as large as 45 to 80 feet, due for completion in 2005. The largest ships of that size, including electronic gear and other amenities, are usually valued around $9 million — or more.

Everett’s existing marina — with 2,050 boat slips for up to 50-foot craft, plus space for 65-foot-long fishing boats — is already the second largest on the West Coast, outpaced only by Marina del Rey in southern California.

“We have a very attractive location for cruising and sailing boaters, with its close access to Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands,” Mohr said. “People at the Seattle Boat Show were excited last year to see our plans.”

Currently, Mohr is excited about the port’s first major military work, providing a convenient site for the Navy to do checking-out and upgrading work on the USS Shoup, a new guided-missile destroyer just assigned to Naval Station Everett.

Ingalls Shipbuilding, owned by the ship’s builder, Northrop Grumman Corp., is doing what Mohr calls “warranty” work on the ship, including fixing problems found in sea trials and upgrading some of the on-board systems that have been modified since the ship was first assembled.

The ship, its towering scaffolding wrapped for several weeks in white “shrink wrap” plastic to protect works from the weather, is berthed near the end of California Street at the Port’s Pier 3, just north of the alumina storage dome. Docking fees will be worth $300,000 or more to the port by the time the work is done in mid-December, Mohr said.

“The contractor even substantially upgraded our pier, installing the electric power needed for the work on the ship, a level of power we didn’t have before. One reason all of this came about was because we’ve always maintained an excellent working relationship with the Navy base. This is convenient for their sailors assigned to the ship, and the Navy doesn’t have the additional security issues they would have with workers going in and out of the base. It works out well having the ship here on our side,” Mohr said.

In another 14 months, another Navy ship is due at the Everett naval base, raising Mohr’s hopes that the port will once again be selected to provide the same kind of re-sources it has provided for the Shoup.

RELATED: Work on Shoup buoys local economy

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