Port favors yachts over working boats

The Port of Seattle now markets Fishermen's Terminal as a recreational marina. This is a significant milestone in the progressing deindustrialization of Seattle's waterfront.

In 2002 the Port of Seattle Commission ignored public protest and opened the traditional homeport of the North Pacific fishing fleet to yacht moorage. At the time, port commissioners claimed that the introduction of pleasure boats was a temporary measure to generate revenue. It would not, they claimed, alter the industrial character of Fishermen's Terminal, a core institution that anchors the Ballard-Interbay marine complex and annually generates more than 5,000 jobs and $400 million in economic impact.

The port's action violated state and municipal zoning laws that protect working waterfront. Initially, port officials did not claim they were siting a recreational marina at Fishermen's Terminal. Had they done so, they would have been forced to apply for an Urban Maritime conditional use permit from the city of Seattle and certify that their action would not interfere with the navigation, manufacturing, parking and loading requirements of industrial users. Instead, the port ignored the municipal zoning code.

The port touts this critical commercial fishing harbor to luxury boaters seeking moorage with no mention of any commercial priority, either for moorage, parking or loading. Glossy port literature advertises fine dining, retail shops, reservable loading docks for pleasure craft and "yacht clubs welcome."

Why did the port push so hard to change Fishermen's Terminal? Was it simply a matter of raising an extra $100,000 annually to help replace the collapsing 1913-1940 docks?

In reality, the yacht issue served to redefine Fishermen's Terminal in ways that made possible the realization of its land value. No longer would it be a facility exclusively dedicated to the fishing fleet and working boats. The port was, in fact, moving in 2001 to reassess Fishermen's Terminal's value on the commercial real estate market.

Despite Port Commission denials, port staff had contracted with Heartland LLC to draw up redevelopment options. Heartland's proposal, which was eventually funded at $50,000, had some very interesting specifics. Most important, the consultants proposed to review the legal title to Fishermen's Terminal and "highlight any exceptions which might present a problem for future users or owners." In addition Heartland was to review the needs of a recreational marina at Fishermen's Terminal and create "deal structure options" for potential real estate transactions.

Perhaps the port has now permanently shelved consideration of the sale of Fishermen's Terminal. Instead, the port seems to be preoccupied with converting public industrial land at Pier 90/91 into new opportunities for real estate developers, renovating Shilshole Marina and building a second money-losing cruise terminal to service an industry that has only a fraction of the economic impact of Fishermen's Terminal.

Although the port is finally rebuilding the docks, I suspect the industrial future of Fishermen's Terminal is not in good hands. Within the past decade, we have, under port management, lost virtually every marine business at Fishermen's Terminal, most recently, the Salmon Bay Boatyard. The last major marine business remaining, the FVO shipyard, is imminently threatened by monorail construction.

It's time to turn the Port of Seattle back to its original mission at Fishermen's Terminal and on the waterfront. Let's elect commissioners who'll put creative energy into industrial preservation, not real estate deals.

The maritime trades and the fishing industry are not museum relics of the smokestack economy. Small-boat fishermen, written off a few years ago by port consultants, are now finding improving markets for wild salmon. Container docks, considered for hotel development, are now bustling with the China trade. Seattle remains a salt-water town and we are all still connected to the food chain of the Pacific Ocean. Fishermen's Terminal remains not for yachts.

Pete Knutson, a commercial fisherman, is president of the Puget Sound Harvesters. He has filed a formal zoning complaint with the Seattle Department of Planning and Development against the port's creation of a recreational marina at Fishermen's Terminal. He can be reached at peterknutson@comcast.net.

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