PORT ANGELES — The Port of Port Angeles might take a new direction with its Marine Trades Industrial Park by building a new ship maintenance facility instead of new work pads for its boat wash-down facility.
The option was discussed Monday at the quarterly joint meeting of port and Clallam County commissioners, who also touched on building a new county Emergency Operations Center in the port’s vacant 1010 building.
Port Commissioners Connie Beauvais, Colleen McAleer and Steven Burke met with county Commissioners Mark Ozias and Randy Johnson in the port meeting room.
County Commissioner Bill Peach is on medical leave.
Port Director of Engineering Chris Hartman said three more work pads had been planned for the $2.15 million wash-down facility, completed in late 2018, but said interest had grown in the port doing more.
“This is kind of unlike any facility we’ve seen as far as its size and scope in Washington state,” Hartman said.
Two travel lifts, with 300- and 500-ton capacities, can serve the Marine Drive industrial park, where port officials are still looking for an anchor tenant.
Hartman said the port has a design consultant under contract.
“We’ve received a lot of input from our stakeholders,” he said.
“There’s a big push for some type of building where painting and blasting can occur, so we put the pause on that, we may be refocusing our effort on that.
“We’d love to start with an anchor tenant or facility of some kind where more blasting and painting can occur,” he said.
“I have been told the facility would be full 75 percent of the time.”
Hartman said after the meeting that the facility could be part of the port’s 2020 capital budget, which Hartman discussed at the port commission meeting earlier Monday by asking commissioners to submit ideas on the budget format and process.
Burke said in a later interview that commissioners will discuss funding a new wash-down area building later this year as part of next year’s spending plan.
The facility would fit well with attracting an anchor tenant or tenants, Burke said.
“It’s certainly infrastructure that anyone moving in is going to want to see,” said Burke, who said he has been active in searching for a new Marine Trades Industrial Park occupant.
“We’ve talked to people that are interested in continuing the conversation,” he said.
“No one is ready to sign on the dotted line.”
The port and county leaders also briefly discussed relocating the county emergency operations center currently in the courthouse basement at the 1010 Building at 2140 W. 18th St.
It’s 1½ miles by road to the port’s William R. Fairchild International Airport, where emergency supplies for the area would be expected to land in the aftermath of a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake.
Whether the city of Port Angeles will be part of the project by relocating its countywide Peninsula Communications emergency dispatch center to the 1010 building is still an open question, the leaders said.
City Manager Nathan West was authorized by the City Council on July 16 to “begin the process of exploring a lease agreement.”
“It just continues to make complete logical sense for us as a county, holistically, to think about where we should have an EOC, should it be at the airport, where we would have something for a source of aid coming into us,” Johnson said.
“The county is looking to continue to go forward probably, anyway, but where we are looking at doing something, that makes sense for the entire county.”
Johnson said the county has put the process “in abatement” for a short period of time until the City Council considers the move.
Johnson said after the meeting he hopes the City Council makes a decision by the end of August.
The county also expects to get word within the next month if it’s been awarded a federal Port Security Grant for about $1.2 million for the project, Johnson said.
________
Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
