PORT ANGELES — Port of Port Angeles commissioners agreed Monday to a 30-year lease with the new owners of Black Ball Ferry Line, which operates the MV Coho vehicle ferry, for its terminal on the Port Angeles waterfront.
The lease provides for the possible purchase of the facilities, as well as solidifies arrangements for a $4 million dock replacement for the terminal at the foot of Laurel Street.
Commissioners expressed relief that the ferry line — which operates the 1,000-passenger MV Coho as it plies the Strait of Juan de Fuca between Port Angeles and Victoria — is again under regional ownership, putting to rest any concerns that the ferry could be transferred to another area by its former owner, the Oregon State University Foundation.
“I feel extremely comfortable having a local ownership group,” said Commissioner John Calhoun.
“It’s a vital part of our community’s infrastructure,” Calhoun said.
Joked Capt. John Cox, chief executive officer of Black Ball: “We’ll be here until the bridge is built.”
Cox and other members of Black Ball’s executive team — which had managed the ferry operation for the Oregon State University Foundation — purchased the ferry line for an undisclosed amount Jan. 5.
Four members of the new ownership team attended the meeting, including Cox, President/COO Ryan Burles of Victoria and District Manager Rian Anderson and Director of Marketing Ryan Malane, both of Port Angeles.
The $116,000 annual lease with the port, which will be signed by ferry operators soon, will give the new owners a chance to negotiate to purchase the ferry dock each year after five years, said Jeff Robb, port executive director.
The port does not own the land under the dock and terminal, so any sale would include only the facilities, Robb said.
The land underneath is owned by the state.
Robb also noted that the contract allows only for negotiation of a possible sale and does not commit either the port or the ferry line to a sale, while giving the port first right of refusal.
Commissioner Paul McHugh said that he was concerned that an annual negotiation for sale of the terminal would be costly.
It was unlikely that serious, formal negotiations would happen every year, Calhoun said.
Under the terms of the lease, Black Ball Ferry Line agreed to replace the western pier of the terminal, a 50-year-old timber structure that has exceeded its useful life.
Replacement of the timber pier with a concrete dock will cost $4 million, with the capital investment coming from Black Ball, Robb said.
The new owners already had announced that they would move forward with the project.
Construction is expected to begin in the next 18 months and it already has permits in the works, Burles said after the sale.
Negotiations for the lease had been going on for at least a year, Calhoun said.
He added that while Oregon State University did well for the ferry line, the university makes decisions based on its own needs, not the needs of the North Olympic Peninsula community.
If the university had sold the company to a buyer with the intent to move the ferry elsewhere, it could have cost the community millions, he said.
“It’s a vital part of our community’s infrastructure,” Calhoun said.
Commissioner Jim Hallett, who attended by phone, asked about what would happen if the new Black Ball owners could not pay its creditors at some point.
Ownership of the Port Angeles-Victoria ferry service would then revert to the port, which can legally operate a ferry line, Robb said.
Black Ball has 51 other full-time employees and a staff of 110 in the busy summer season, Burles said.
It had been bequeathed for 10 years to the university foundation by the late Lois Acheson, an Oregon State University alumna with a love for animals, upon her death in 2004 as part of a $21 million endowment for the university’s College of Veterinary Medicine.
Acheson had taken over Black Ball Freight Service and Black Ball Transport in 1963 at age 32 upon the death of her husband — just four years after the MV Coho was built.
________
Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
