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Feb. 21, 2018
In this issue:
In a special commission meeting Thursday,
commissioners will consider several property-related issues. They will hear a
first reading on a 50-year lease with Avenue 55 LLC, hold a public hearing and
then take action on declaring a four-acre site on the Wheeler-Osgood Waterway
surplus and consider clearing title in a property deal that closed in 1975.
Commissioners will also hear an update on the
Port of Tacoma Road and 54th Avenue East Interstate 5 interchange
projects and consider changing the commission’s regular meeting time to 5 p.m.
on the third Thursday of each month for the period of April through September
2018.
The meeting has a full agenda and starts
Thursday at noon. See the complete agenda.
Commission meetings are held in Room 104 of the Fabulich Center, 3600 Port of
Tacoma Rd. Meetings are streamed live.
 The Zhen Hua 28,
the vessel carrying The Northwest Seaport Alliance’s four new
super-post-Panamax cranes, is tentatively
scheduled to arrive Friday, Feb. 23.
Once they’re here, the cranes will be installed at
Pier 4 that’s currently under construction at Husky Terminal. The Pier 4
reconfiguration included the alignment with an adjacent pier to create one
contiguous berth capable of serving two 18,000-TEU container ships. The
improvements will support larger container cranes and vessels.
Learn more
about the Pier 4 project.
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The Port of Tacoma commissioners approved a 30-year
lease last week with Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL) to develop an auto
processing facility on the former Kaiser Aluminum site.
The Managing Members of The Northwest Seaport
Alliance also approved a 10-year vessel services agreement to set the rates for
the breakbulk services, managed by the alliance.
“WWL is delighted to grow our relationship with the
Port of Tacoma through the addition of a state-of-the-art automotive processing
center,” said John Felitto, president of WWL Vehicle Services Americas. “We are
thankful for the support of Northwest Seaport Alliance commissioners and the
Port of Tacoma team who made this a success.”
WWL has called in the Puget Sound region with
roll-on/roll-off ships since 1992. The auto processing facility will expand
WWL’s marine cargo business in the Pacific Northwest.
The lease includes 90 acres at the former Kaiser
Aluminum smelter site in Tacoma, and is estimated to create more than 100 new
jobs in addition to the 61 already associated with WWL when the facility is
operational, estimated by the end of 2018.
“This site is a prime piece of industrially-zoned
land with access to a deep-water berth,” said Don Meyer, president of the Port
of Tacoma commission. “We are pleased to see it put back into productive use to
support The Northwest Seaport Alliance’s marine cargo business and help a
valued customer grow.”
The
$35 million facility in Tacoma is expected to process up to 100,000 vehicles a
year, most of which will be bound for the local market or transported by rail
to the U.S. Midwest. The ships will dock at the 1,200-foot-long East Blair One
wharf on the east side of the Blair Waterway.
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For the second year in a row, the Port of Tacoma
partnered with the students at Hilltop
Artists to produce and share unique monkeyshines as
a part of the annual Lunar New Year community event.
Port staff hid 30 of the
glass orbs around the county to share the tradition. If you happen to find one,
please post a photo to social media and tag us with #port253.
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The Agriculture
Transportation Coalition, the association representing agricultural shippers,
has selected Tacoma as the location for its June annual meeting.
The meeting June 12 through 15 at the Greater
Tacoma Convention Center is expected to be the largest gathering of
agriculture and forest products transportation professionals in the U.S.
AgTC members, made up of companies that import and
export food, farm and fiber products, ship more than 2 million containers each
year.
The NWSA is the top refrigerated export gateway and
second-largest export gateway for overall agricultural and forest products in
the U.S. The value of those exports added up to more than $6.8 billion in 2016,
making up 76 percent of NWSA containerized exports. Nearly 75 percent of these
exports were destined for China, Japan and other northeastern Asia countries,
but they also went to 160 countries around the world.
Find more information about AgTC’s annual meeting.
If
you are a truck driver serving our gateway, make sure to sign up for
our news and updates via email or text. Subscribe to emails at nwseaportalliance.com/subscribe. Or text NWSA
TRUCKS to 468311 to receive updates via text message (message & data rates
apply).
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