PORT TOWNSEND — The Port is in the running with Olympia and Raymond to host a California-based shipbuilding operation, the operation’s president confirmed Monday.
An announcement on the site selection should come in the middle of January, Santa Maria Shipping LLC President Stas Margaronis said in a telephone interview from Santa Rosa, Calif.
The company settled on Olympia in June to build 300-foot cargo ships after looking at several locations, including Port Angeles.
But a second phase of the operation, which could possibly construct larger ships, cannot take place there, Margaronis said.
The company is now looking at Port Townsend and Raymond, in Pacific County.
“We’d like to be in a place where we can build the smaller ships and bigger ships at the same location, and keep the management and everything there,” he said.
But that doesn’t rule out Olympia, he noted. His company doesn’t have orders for any bigger ships.
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The rest of the story appears in the Tuesday Peninsula Daily News Jefferson County edition.
