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To serve our customers and protect the seaport's natural resources, the Port of Seattle is dedicated to planning today to ensure future prosperity. The increasing scarcity of industrial lands, growing competition among West Coast ports, decreasing public funding and emerging new technologies create the need for effective and comprehensive long-range planning.
While keeping pace with growth is one of our greatest challenges, our foremost strength is our ability to anticipate future needs. We are investing more than $1 billion over 10 years in capital improvements aimed at upgrading and expanding our waterfront facilities. Bigger terminals, better technology and improved freight mobility are just a few of the enhancements already completed, under way or planned for the future.
T18 | T91 | Fishermen's Terminal | Bell Street Pier Cruise Terminal
Dredging of East Waterway of the Duwamish River
| Shilshole Bay Marina
The upgrade, in excess of $300 million, will expand Terminal 18 to 196 acres (79 hectares), making it the Port's largest container terminal. Other highlights include doubling intermodal container rail capacity, so cargo can be moved directly onto railcars, and improving land access to the container terminals by way of rail and road grade separations or route changes.
These improvements - totaling $64 million - include approximately 4,000 linear feet (1,219 meters) of apron reconstruction, installation of a pier-side rail spur and replacement of an existing warehouse and industrial building. The construction is expected to be completed by 2001.
A $7.1-million electrical upgrade will accommodate additional large vessels and seiners or long-liners. The Port also plans to reconfigure the docks at Fishermen's Terminal.
Bell Street Pier Cruise TerminalThis $16.9 million capital upgrade will accommodate homeported cruise vessels starting in May 2000. Phase I will be completed in 2000, while Phase II with a pedestrian concourse will be completed for the 2001 cruise season.
The Port and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are conducting a joint dredging project for the first 3,000 feet (914 meters) of the East Waterway of the Duwamish River. The project, estimated at $7.5 million (the Port's share is $4 million), will help make several more of the Port's container berths deep enough to accommodate the next generation of container ships, some of which can carry 6,000 TEUs (20-foot equivalent unit containers). This will help create additional jobs on the waterfront and throughout the region. Under terms of the agreement, the channel between Terminals 46, 37, 39 and 25 to the east and 18 to the west will be dredged to a depth of 51 feet (16 meters) in those areas where it does not already reach that depth.
The Port proposes to replace 21 of the 23 docks to renew the useful life of the facility, upgrade amenities provided on the docks and respond to market demand for more recreational moorage and an increased variety of berths.