Fairview Port gets noticed south of the 49th

The Port of Seattle and its shipping industry there is used to competition from the Port of Vancouver for a share of the lucrative cross Pacific container line traffic, the two cities have been engaged in a lively rivalry for years over which location offers the best value for shippers to land their goods on North American shores.

But now Seattle is looking further north as the Fairview Container Port gets closer to completion and yet another competitor joins the quest for global shipping routes.

The Seattle Times Editorial page offers up some interesting food for thought on the issue of global trade and the numerous North American beach heads in the process. It also takes a look at the Port of Prince Rupert and the impact that the Rupert Port may have on shipping through the Seattle Terminals.

Any port in a storm

James Vesely / Times editorial page editor

Seattle Times

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Just offshore of the messy and internecine Port of Seattle squabbles is the world around us, a churning place where ports and maritime industries compete with the ruthless ardor of combatants.

Let's drift our eyes north, about halfway between here and Anchorage, to Prince Rupert, B.C., where the Canadian and provincial governments are working to create a significant cargo terminal in the wilderness. Prince Rupert, now a town of about 18,000 people, mostly working in the timber industry, is the site of Western Canada's ambitious initiative. CBC News reported the following:

• Canada's federal government, plus the province, are putting up $30 million of a total of $120 million in expansion of a cargo terminal at Prince Rupert, expected to be operational by 2009.
• New Jersey-based Maher Terminals, the port operator, will add $60 million to the project. That company was just sold to a German firm.
• The B.C. hamlet is the closest land-sea terminal to Asia, and Canada is promising a "seamless" shipment of goods to rail from the new port. That would come with a large truck-transfer point 500 rail miles east of Port Rupert.

Had enough? B.C. highway, rail and border systems already have $3 billion committed to improvements. Combined with the ongoing commitment of its federal government, Prince Rupert will be yet another competitor to Pacific ports — from B.C. to Baja.

To a packed audience before City Club Thursday, new Seattle Port CEO Tay Yoshitani said the new Port Rupert terminal "will definitely have an impact on us" — less so with a potential new port at Lazaro Cadenas, Mexico, which would probably not compete with shipment through northern ports to Chicago and the Midwest.

Wishful thinking, I say. That big empty parking lot near Piers 90 and 91 that used to be covered with imported cars now sits empty. Port Commissioner John Creighton hinted a tenant is negotiating with the Port and the city for one of the best sites along the coast for light industry
The Port's wooing of the cruise industry now puts about 830,000 people through Seattle every cruise season. That's great, although in Alaska and other locations the reputation of the Port of Seattle is that it engages in a significant giveaway (also known as accommodation) to the shipping lines. That's amid a strong revenue base across King County. The Port's levy for 2007 is $68.8 million in property taxes, a rate of 23.25 cents per $1,000 valuation.

All this suggests that while Port salaries and Port machinations are titillating, they are largely symbolic — and trivial — to the larger questions about who will direct Port policy and in what direction with both the property tax and the competition from abroad.

Yoshitani on Thursday said he could not think of "a business model that might work for both Tacoma and the Port of Seattle" — although you would have to start with the easy equation that Seattle has the brand name and Tacoma has the land.

While we debate the local and the obvious, the world is moving on significant new routes across the Pacific and would just love to eat our bacon.