Staying Afloat in Anacortes
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Anacortes is a beautiful place to work, to play, and to live. Residential and recreational opportunities
are important, but it is also important to maintain a balanced community with
good jobs and ground-up business growth.
It is also necessary to maintain diversity in commercial land, thereby
diversifying the city’s economy. With
so many other Washington towns converting wholesale to tourist and retirement
economies, Anacortes needs to keep a balanced land-use strategy to retain its
popularity, diversity, and adaptability for the next century. |
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A brief history. In the late 1950s, the Anacortes city
council authorized the use of eminent domain to raze peaceful neighborhoods along
Fidalgo Bay in order to create a centralized
industrial district. At that time,
there was plenty of vacant land that could have been developed without great
hardship to townspeople. Yet even in
the 1950s in Washington State it was hard to find large, flat tracts with
low-bank access to navigable water.
Town planners recognized that there were certain unique economic
activities that could exist only on this kind of land. Although the nature of these activities has
changed considerably over the years, the land’s economically strategic
characteristics endure. Today, the area west of Q-R Avenue
between Seafarers’ Way and 34th Street has become known as the Fidalgo Bay industrial district. It has been home to diverse manufacturing
projects, including the Alaska oil pipeline, windmill towers, and superyachts.
Office space began appearing in the early 1990s, and current zoning
allows resort development north of 22nd Street. Yet throughout the years, boat service and
construction has remained the most prominent industry in this district. The Fidalgo Bay
industrial district remains an ideal location because of its combined
proximity to navigable water, major highways, and city amenities—not to
mention the primacy, appropriateness, and long-standing presence of
marine-related businesses in this neighborhood and in the city of Anacortes. Here’s what the marine
industry needs to remain competitive in today’s markets: |
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Strong zoning. In 1994, Anacortes city government
initiated an exhaustive six-year study to take a fresh look at the future of
the Fidalgo Bay industrial district. This study, known today as the Fidalgo Bay Plan, included experts' analyses of the
social, environmental, and economic implications of a variety of different
development scenarios. After having
considered residential, recreational, and industrial development, government
officials decided to emphasize a combination of water-dependent industrial
and recreational uses but to forbid residential development. Anacortes real estate enjoys great
popularity, leading some developers to continue to propose non-marine uses on
waterfront industrial land. While
retail and residential uses may pencil out to turn the quickest profit for
some landowners, these projects would permanently erase hundreds of
living-wage job opportunities. This is
why Anacortes has explicitly defined its commercial and industrial marine
zoning: owners of marine working land have an obligation to develop high-paying,
water-dependent jobs that cannot exist elsewhere. Anacortes’s navigable working waterfront is
a precious resource: once it’s gone, it’s gone forever. If today's government officials were to
erode the protections of commercial marine zoning, they would set an ominous
precedent. They would send the message
that zoning laws are negotiable for heavy-handed property owners. They would allow a private company's
maximum profit to take precedence over citizens' earnest attempts to provide
for their families. And they would
allow fundamentally incompatible uses to exist next door to one another,
setting the stage for unsolvable conflicts between property owners. |
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Proximate training facilities. Demand for qualified marine tradespeople is constantly increasing, and many experienced
marine workers desire to continue their educations. Marine vocational training is a respectable
option for local teens who do not covet desk jobs but desire to earn a good
living in the Skagit Valley. As marine
work opportunities expand, workers from other fields continually gravitate
toward the marine industry and need retraining. Some forward-thinking marine companies have
begun cross-training their employees in different fields, creating a
knowledgeable and reconfigurable workforce.
This reduces the need for layoffs, boosts efficiency, and fosters
workplace morale. Skagit Valley College has built a
superb Marine
Maintenance Technology Program, but the courses are not held in Skagit
County. The program has a strong
work-study component, but academic and vocational facilities are dozens of
miles apart. Both the college and the
industry would benefit from an integrated "campus" that puts chalk
talk within arm's reach of real-world experience. A reasonably small investment in classroom
facilities would create a much more synergistic learning environment in the
discipline's regional epicenter. |
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Room to expand. The Fidalgo Bay
industrial district is in the midst of a building boom that began in the late
1980s: the amount of built square footage has more than tripled since
1986. Several major employers have
settled in this region during the past 20 years, and today 800 to 1000 people
work in the Fidalgo Bay industrial district. Although vacant land remains visibly
plentiful, it belongs to owners who are unwilling to sell it or are unwilling
to develop marine-related uses. MJB
Properties, a Seattle developer, has held the title to 42% of the land in the
Fidalgo Bay industrial district since 1990. In the past, MJB has expressed little
interest in constructing facilities that abet the marine trades. With this much acreage under the control of
one non-maritime property owner, expansion options are limited mostly to
small infill parcels away from the waterfront. There is a silver lining: the owner of
Northern Marine recently acquired the last sizable vacant parcel not
belonging to MJB, Sugiyo, or the government. |
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Launch facilities for bigger boats. Recreational boating has become the
staple of most marine businesses in the Fidalgo Bay
industrial district. Yachts have grown
much larger over the past 20 years, and the number of large (80’+) yachts
under construction has doubled since 2000.
This indicates a rising demand not only for new large yachts, but also
increasing demand for the refit and maintenance of existing large yachts. In spite of this trend, the maximum
launch capacity in the Fidalgo Bay industrial
district has not increased in the past two decades. Business owners have invested in new launch
equipment during this time, but their choices have been limited by existing
pier facilities. Right now, the Fidalgo
Bay industrial district is limited to a launch-and-retrieve capacity of 55
tons, which equates to a 65-footer.
Northern Marine has launched yachts as large as 85 feet at a ramp with
its own equipment, but retrieval at this site is not possible. In the past, two large (130’ and 150’)
boats built in the Fidalgo Bay industrial district
were moved two miles on hydraulic crawlers to a viable launch site. This process could not sustain regular business:
it involves road closures and costs the builder an estimated $25,000 each
way. A more proximate high-capacity 330-ton Travelift
could launch and retrieve yachts as big as 150 to 160 feet for a fraction of
the cost. This system would allow
local marine service providers to expand into the big-boat market, help
existing big-boat manufacturers remain competitive, and attract new
businesses that focus on big boats. A 330-ton Travelift
would requires a sizable launching pier, and this is
the biggest hurdle to implementing a large lift system. The southern portion of Fidalgo
Bay grows shallow quickly. The parcel
recently bought by the owner of Northern Marine abuts hopelessly shallow
water. The most ideal locations near
deeper water and dredged channels belong to MJB Properties, but adjoining
land owned by the DNR also holds promise. Large vessels are often more frequently
and more fastidiously maintained than smaller vessels, and thus constitute a
much more financially stable customer base.
Maintenance costs increase exponentially with boat length: a
150-footer would bring in four times the work that three 50-footers would. The Port of Anacortes is renovating Cap
Sante Marina to accommodate bigger boats. Why let these boaters pause to shop for
just a few days when they could stay for a three-month, million-dollar
overhaul? |
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Service docks for bigger boats. A bigger lift would also necessitate
bigger docks where large boats could be serviced, tested, or queued. For serious service, loading, fueling, and
refit work, the marine trades would need a dock onto which trucks could drive
right up next to the boats. |
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EPA-compliant paint and prep facilities. Eventually, the marine trades would
like to add EPA-compliant facilities for doing quality paint and prep work on
big boats. These facilities could also
be used for smaller boats. Boat repair
firms are currently forced to turn away some paint jobs because they cannot
provide clean, compliant surroundings at a reasonable cost. A specialized facility would ease
compliance burdens and provide a dust-free environment for top-quality
finishes. Boaters would come from
miles around to obtain a superior paint job. |
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Public access. The marine trades are proud to share
the waterfront with the public. Public
access would be unrestricted except during heavy lifts, when a small area
would be cordoned off. There is room
for promenades, piers, benches, and parking.
Bring a sack lunch and come watch us put the finishing touches on our
latest creation. Perhaps it will
inspire your children to join us when they grow up. |
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Our proposal. We see all of the above amenities
coming together in a government- or corporation-owned facility that is
available to all local businesses on a pay-per-use basis. |
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Successful precedent. Port Townsend, a city similar to Anacortes,
has operated a thriving 36-acre port-owned boatyard in the heart of downtown
since 1997. Anybody with a city
business license is allowed to rent space or to perform work within the
compound. The facility includes a
330-ton Travelift that gets used at least twice
daily. |
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© 2006, AMTA |
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