PORT ANGELES — Sell that harborfront tract to Platypus Marine, two business organizations have urged Port of Port Angeles commissioners.
The Port Angeles Business Association, or PABA, voted Tuesday morning to endorse Platypus’ purchasing 4 acres of land to double the boatbuilder’s workforce and economic impact.
The North Peninsula Builders Association sent its president, Kevin Russell, to deliver the same message.
PABA members barely let Marty Marchant, director of Platypus sales and marketing, finish his presentation to them before voting unanimously to support the boatbuilder’s bid to buy land for expansion.
As for the North Peninsula builders, Russell told commissioners later that day that “we in the building industry see it as a plus.”
Commissioners answered that they support Platypus’ effort to add buildings and boatyard space at 102 N. Cedar St. that would double the marine firm’s current payroll of 70 people.
Wages would average $48,500, the company said.
Lease or sell?
However, commissioners prefer not to sell the land but to lease it to Platypus, perhaps under a 50-year pact with an option for a 30-year renewal, which they say are the longest terms that state law allow.
Over the past century, they said, Washington’s public ports have acquired waterfront land from industrialists whose mills and railroads had polluted it.
Ports got not just the land but the task of cleaning it up, as they will with the former plywood mill site just west of Platypus on Marine Drive.
In a related development, commissioners voted to proceed with that project, committing themselves to spend $5 million to excavate between 15,000 yard and 20,000 yards of earth from the site that was known as KPly and most recently housed Peninsula Plywood.
The soil is contaminated with hydraulic oil and benzene.
Commissioners hope to recover much of the cost from polluters that include Exxon Mobil, which operated a pipeline from harborfront to upland areas along Marine Drive. Insurers and the state Department of Ecology also could pay some of the cost.
Contractors this year will start excavating parts of the site down to the water table, hauling away polluted earth and refilling the land.
Crews also will remove toxic vapors from the soil and render them into carbon dioxide and water.
A comment period to Ecology will start April 2 and run through May 4.
Jesse Waknitz, port environmental specialist, said Ecology probably will post details on the comment period next week.
Seth Preston, communications manager for the department’s toxic cleanup program, said state law gives the public “a chance to weigh in at every step” of a project.
‘Banks don’t like it’
As for Platypus, it hopes to own its site to persuade investors and customers of the permanency of its operation, which includes building and repairing pleasure boats, commercial craft and vessels of the Navy and Coast Guard, Marchant said.
“The banks don’t like it that we don’t own it,” he told about 30 PABA members who gathered for their weekly meeting at Joshua’s Restaurant, 113 DelGuzzi Drive.
“We want to work together with the port. There’s room for everyone to work together. There’ll still be room to load logs.”
But Port Commissioner Colleen McAleer, while saying “we absolutely want to get Platypus to success,” told PABA she preferred a long-term lease.
Platypus presently leases its location from the Port of Port Angeles for $93,000 a year, according to McAleer.
She also challenged Platypus owner Judson Linnabary’s statement that the land was worth around $700,000.
“I question the validity of that particular appraisal,” she said. “I think the cost would be much higher” if it included the site’s income potential.
A golden egg?
As for Marchant’s and Linnabary’s claim that a sale would mirror a deal struck in 2003 with Platypus’ next-door neighbor, Westport Shipyard, “I would not have supported that particular contract but held out for first right of refusal and ‘best practices’ in the real estate industry,” McAleer said.
If Platypus were to fail financially and the port want to buy back the land, it might have to pay for improvements the port might not need, she said.
Presently, port staff members are discussing with Linnabary the possibility of a lease or, if that proves impossible, a sale bound by buyback provisions.
“We have asked the staff to work with Platypus to see if they can get the loans that they need with the favorable terms.
“Perhaps we can get better terms for them.”
Marchant responded, “If they can lay a golden egg, maybe that will work.”
Nevertheless, McAleer said, “If we cannot figure out a lease solution, I will support a sale.”
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com
