The Puyallup Tribe of Indians and SSA Marine Inc. today announced an agreement to develop 180 acres into a new marine terminal at the Port of Tacoma. The terminal will be built along the Blair Waterway where the tribe once operated its original Emerald Queen Casino.

Other tribal land, which now stands empty, will be used along with SSA-owned land as as a marshaling yard and storage area for containers.

SSA Marine will transfer to the tribe 52 acres as part of the deal, and will operate the terminal under a lease agreement. The company will also bear the cost of development and any environmental remediation, said John Weymer, tribal spokesman.

The company will spend $300 million for initial development of the terminal, Weymer said. Details of a “long-term lease agreement” were not released. No public funds will be used in the development of the property.

The Puyallup Tribe originally received the port property as part of a land-claims settlement. SSA Marine is the largest U.S.-owned, and the largest privately held container terminal operator and cargo handling company in the world, and serves 120 locations around the globe.

Tacoma-based Labor Ready acquired Skilled Services Corporation, a skilled construction trades staffing company, the company announced today. SSC has 21 locations around the country.

Labor Ready paid about $25.5 million for the Florida-based company.

The Tacoma staffing company first entered the skilled construction trades market in 2005 with its purchase of CLP Resources.

CLP has since seen significant growth, adding 21 branches to the 51 that Labor Ready purchased.

Steve Cooper, Labor Ready CEO, said SSC's management team will stay in place. SSC President Mark Curtiss will head the SSC operations and report to Noel Wheeler, CEO of CLP Resources.

The preliminary groundbreaking date for a new boutique hotel on Tacoma's near-downtown Foss Waterway has now slipped from May to mid-June.

There's been no official announcement, but that's the best educated guess from Don Meyer, the head of the Thea Foss Waterway Development Authority, which owns the land where the combination hotel and condominium project will be built.

The new hotel, repeatedly delayed while the potential developers redesigned the project to make it pencil out financially, will serve a higher end market than the existing major hotels downtown, the Sheraton and the Marriott Courtyard with its waterfront location.

Tacoma's other waterfront hotel, the Silver Cloud on Ruston Way, enjoys the highest occupancy rate of any major Tacoma hotel.

Bill Boyer, a former Alaska Airlines baggage handler and Lakewood espresso stand entrepreneur who now owns Hawaii's Mokulele Airlines, says his growing airline has a new financial angel.

Dorvin Leis, head of Hawaii's largest mechanical construction firm, has invested several million dollars in Boyer's commuter airline, the airline said Monday.

Boyer made his fortune by inventing and marketing a portable digital movie player for the transportation industry. Boyer sold his digEplayer to a Salt Lake City firm and bought Mokulele.

That airline, now has a deal to serve as a feeder airline for a new Hawaiian carrier go! owned by Mesa Airlines.

Mokulele is investing in four new single-engine, 9-passenger Cessna Caravans to fly its routes among the Hawaiian Islands. Service began earlier this month on go!Express' first route.

A new and improved Tacoma Mall is on the way. And it started today with the demolition of the former Mervyns store at the west side of the shopping center to make room for a new Nordstrom.

The demolition is projected to take about a month. Once the building is down, the mall will begin constructing a two-story, 144,000-square-foot Nordstrom that is scheduled to open in the fall of 2008.

The current Nordstrom store will be turned into a lifestyle center that will include restaurants and shops.