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Port finds it’s not easy keeping everyone happy

Leaders hesitant to make deal with Neil Jones

By Aaron Corvin, Columbian Port & Economy Reporter
Published: July 23, 2010, 12:00am

Port of Vancouver leaders want the port to be an engine for creating jobs.

But making its business tenants happy can be a challenge, as the port’s different approach to two similar requests illustrates.

After the port recently decided to negotiate the sale of land to a specialty steel company, The Neil Jones Food Co. asked for similar treatment. Eyeing expansion, the Vancouver-based food processor wants to own, instead of lease, the 15-acre, 400,000-square-foot complex that houses one of its subsidiaries, Northwest Packing Co.

But port leaders, who agreed to free up land to bring Farwest Steel to the port in hopes of creating jobs, are hesitant to make a similar deal with Neil Jones, a longtime tenant.

The conflict illustrates a difficult balance the port must strike. It wants to support employers who have set up shop on the port’s industrial lands. But selling off land prevents it from developing rail and other infrastructure that could lure more employers to Clark County.

Port Commissioner Nancy Baker said Neil Jones’ Northwest Packing, which employs 538 workers at peak times, is important to the community. But if the port grants Neil Jones’ wish, the community loses public ownership, and therefore influence, over the site.

Neil Jones leaders see it differently. To compete better in the global food industry, they want more control over their future. That means owning, not leasing, the Northwest Packing site.

Matt Jones, president and chief operating officer of privately owned, family-run Neil Jones, said the company wants to expand its footprint at the port and continue to make long-term investments there. “To do that we really need to be able to control our own destiny,” he said.

Though the company wants to own the site, it also prefers to stay at the port, he said.

“We want to stay here. I know the port would like us here,” Jones said. But he added that packing up and leaving are still options.

The port’s elected three-member board of commissioners has the final say over Neil Jones’ proposal. The port’s board expects to make a decision before the end of this year.

Port Executive Director Larry Paulson, who said he does not favor selling to Neil Jones, said, “We’re going to take some additional steps to see where and whether we can find some middle ground.”

The Northwest Packing site is one of three processing facilities Neil Jones has in Washington and California. In a July 8 letter to the port, Neil Jones attorney Robert Schaefer wrote that the company is asking for “the same type of consideration” given to Farwest.

But port officials said the situation with Farwest is different. The location for Farwest is undeveloped and will not be essential to the port’s long-term rail and water shipping plans, they said.

By contrast, Northwest Packing inhabits a “superpopulated area,” said Curtis Shuck, the port’s director of economic development and facilities. The port has development plans for other land near the Northwest Packing site, and it’s possible that future port operations could affect the site itself. Said Shuck: “What are the impacts of having a private-property owner located within an island of other uses?”

Jerry Oliver, president of the port’s Board of Commissioners, opposes selling to Neil Jones. The port cannot afford to lose a property that could become strategically important to the port’s long-term marine activities, and those activities generate revenue for the port, Oliver said.

Matt Jones said the Northwest Packing property neither affects the port’s marine activities nor its rail projects. “None of our property borders a river,” Jones said.

Beyond port officials’ specific objections, as a matter of policy the port rarely sells land. That stance is typical among Washington ports, according to Eric Johnson, executive director of the Washington Public Ports Association. Industrial land is scarce, he said, and that, in part, fuels “a bias toward not selling.”

Northwest Packing’s current 25-year lease on the site expires at the end of 2011. It has an option to extend the lease another 25 years. The company, which has been at the port since 1973, pays $12,905 per month in rent. This year, the port expects to receive a total of about $155,000 in lease payments from the company. Shuck said the port and the company have a good relationship. They also are at a new turning point. “The pressure is on now,” Shuck said.

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Columbian Port & Economy Reporter