(December 2014 photo by Long Bach Nguyen)
When the Port of Seattle‘s Terminal 5 in West Seattle shut down last July, the vast empty space visible from the bridge caused doubletakes for weeks – no ships, no containers, no trucks. The modernization project expected to put it back into use is still at least three years – and up to a quarter-billion dollars – away from completion. But the port had said it was looking for interim uses, and this Tuesday, its commission will be briefed on what is apparently its most-likely prospect: Leasing space to Foss Maritime for projects including homeporting and supplying Arctic-drilling and support vessels for Shell and handling components for an LNG (liquefied natural gas) plant planned near Prince Rupert, B.C.
The port’s been talking to Foss about this since before Terminal 5 closed last July, according to a memo by Seaport Managing Director Linda Styrk and Deputy CEO Kurt Beckett, published with the commission agenda that went online last Thursday – the T-5 details start on page 5:
The memo says the drilling support would involve homeporting eight vessels from fall through spring, until they head for summer work in Alaska, and handling equipment and supplies for the fleet.
(While the specific vessels are not mentioned, Shell vessels have come through Seattle before, for work at nearby Vigor – most notably two that had trouble later in Alaskan waters, the drill rigs Kulluk and Noble Discoverer, which were to come back in 2013 but were taken to Asia instead.)
In addition to the potential oil/gas exploration and LNG plant component work, the Port memo says, “Foss has identified additional prospects for breakbulk and bulk business” that it could add, possibly even including work for the port itself, involving helping get “… 100,000 tons of aggregates to Sea-Tac’s center runway repaving project. Vessels would deliver aggregates to T-5, where they would be transported to SeaTac International Airport over the road in a manner that would reduce air emissions and regional traffic congestion versus traditional routes.”
But to get any of this going, according to the memo, the port has to move fast, because Foss might need the space as soon as March and would need to start work ASAP on “tenant improvements” (though, as this Seattle Times report also notes, it has not yet won the contract for the LNG project). So this is all on the agenda for Tuesday’s commission meeting, 1 pm at the Sea-Tac Airport Conference Center. Commissioner Stephanie Bowman had told the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce in October that T-5 is “not going to be empty for long,” and now it appears that’s true.
P.S. The slide deck for Tuesday’s meeting also touches on the plans to deepen both waterways at Harbor Island; the timeline for that work is much further into the future, listed now as 2021-2025 for the West Waterway, which T-5 fronts.
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