PORT ANGELES — The Port of Port Angeles is just months away from completing work on the $11.03 million Marine Trade Center located on the former PenPly/KPly mill site.
Commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved a $1,756,833 grant from the Clallam County Opportunity Fund program that will be used to fulfill a local match requirement for Phase 2 of the project’s funding.
“It’s a great job creator and it’s also so, so close to being done,” said Katharine Frazier, the port’s grants and contracts manager. “We’ve got some other work items that are going to kick back up as we start moving into spring and this money is going to go right to that.”
The port is turning the former industrial site into development-ready plots that it will lease to marine trade companies. According to the port, the enterprise will create about 115 jobs within five years.
Phase 2 of construction on the 18-acre site began last April. It was anticipated to be completed by December, but delay of the arrival of some electrical equipment pushed the date to July.
Commissioners approved a lease with Atlas Tower for 2,500 square feet of port property on 18th Street for installation of a cellular tower.
Atlas Tower will pay the port $400 a month ($4,800 a year) with an option for two five-year extensions.
The port will receive $120,000 upon completion of construction of the tower and $350 for each carrier. It can also place a repeater on the tower. When commissioners took their first look at the lease during their March 11 meeting, they asked Director of Economic Development Caleb McMahon if this could be added as a condition and Atlas Tower agreed.
Executive Director Paul Jarkiewicz said state legislation aimed at raising revenue by eliminating some tax preferences could negatively impact the port. The state will collect $845 million less in revenue over the next four years than it had forecast, and legislators must come up with a balanced budget by the time the session ends on April 27.
Among the Democrats’s proposals, he said, was Senate Bill 5794, which would eliminate 20 different tax exemptions related to the intrastate movement of agricultural products, commodities and manufactured goods. This included the transportation of goods from point of origin to export and from storage to export, as well as the in-state portion of the interstate transport of goods originating in Washington and destined for another state (and vice versa).
“It takes away those exemptions and adds an additional burden to trucking and trains, and anybody in the stevedoring business,” Jarkiewicz said. “Couple that with some of the tariffs that have been proposed, we’re looking at a triple hit potentially — extra tariffs, extra taxes and expenses, adding to the already strained shipping that we have.”
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Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached at paula.hunt@peninsuladailynews.com.
