Port of Tacoma commissioners recently approved a motion to authorize $7 million to advance its planned Port Maritime Center project.
The approval means construction could start in 2025 and could be complete as early as mid-2026, Kristin Ang, port commission president, and Eric Johnson, executive director for the Port of Tacoma, told the Business Journal.
“We are developing this on the east side of the Foss Waterway, and it will serve as the front door to the port,” Ang said.
While there is significant redevelopment taking place on the west side of the waterway with marinas, restaurants and public access points, the east side is relatively underdeveloped at this point, Johnson said. This new project promises to change that.
“This will be a world-class port maritime center,” Johnson said.
The funding that was approved in March will get the project through the 60% design phase. The 60,000-square-foot building at 203 E. D St. is expected to cost between $80 million and $110 million.
BNBuilders and TCF Architecture were selected as the design-build team. Parametrix is the design-build consultant, Perkins Coie and Pacifica Law Group are serving as external legal consultants.
The two-story structure will have space for about 150 port and Northwest Seaport Alliance employees, meeting chambers and serve as the port’s headquarters.
The Port Maritime Center project has been a long time coming.
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Currently, port meetings are held in a building at 3600 Port of Tacoma Road near Fife. Discussions for a new headquarters started in 2017 but gained momentum in 2020.
“It started as a discussion with Tacoma schools,” Johnson said. “We needed to move our offices and we wanted to prioritize workforce development. Meanwhile, Dr. Josh Garcia, superintendent at Tacoma Public Schools, asked how could he get his students hooked up with jobs at the port. One of the priorities is to have a working waterway that allows those who grow up here to connect with job training.”
For that reason, the site will include the planned Tacoma Public Schools Maritime | 253, which is being developed through an interlocal agreement. That means the two entities will work together on master planning and site assessment.
The Tacoma Schools building, which is adjacent to the Port of Tacoma development, will be about 30,000 to 35,000 square feet and serve about 600 students on-site per year and about 25 permanent staff. There will be two sessions a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
Construction costs for the building, which are separate from the Port of Tacoma project, are expected to be between $35 million and $41 million. The district will use the same development team as the port.
There has also been a significant amount of attention paid to the cultural importance of the new site, a part of which had been used by the Puyallup Tribe of Indians.
“The best map we have, which is from the 1870s, shows the site was originally underwater,” Johnson said. “It sits mostly on fill. However, there is part of the site, called The Boot, which had been part of an island in the tidelands that was home to a very important village for the tribe.”
The port met with the tribe early on to ensure site development did not disrupt or interfere with any land that had cultural significance. The Port of Tacoma is located on the historical lands of the Puyallup Tribe.
“This is a dream project for the port and we are excited to be developing it in collaboration with Tacoma Public Schools, as well in close cooperation with the tribe,” Ang said.