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Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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The Port of Tacoma has started to tear down buildings on the Blair-Hylebos Peninsula to make room for new shipping terminals.
Shipping line NYK announced last year that it was moving from Seattle to a new 168-acre container terminal on the Blair Waterway in Tacoma.
That terminal is scheduled to open in 2012.
As part of that project the port will also relocate the shipping terminal for TOTE, a shipping line that carries cargo to Alaska, and improve the peninsula's road and rail infrastructure.
But before all that can happen, the port needs to tear down 129 buildings and structures to clear the way for construction.
Port staff will be in front of the port commission Thursday requesting approval for the demolition program.
The first phase includes knocking down 56 structures including the former Tacoma steam plant and the old Arkema chemical site.
The first phase will cost an estimated $18.7 million.
The port initially estimated that developing the east side of the Blair Waterway for shipping would cost about $800 million.
Executive Director Tim Farrell said today that the total development cost could range between $1 billion and $1.3 billion.
The estimates are on the high-end, he added, in that the port is assuming it won't receive grant funding or assistance from other interested parties.
Demolition has already started on a former kite shop located on E. 11th Street.
"Essentially the projects we are doing this year are facilities that are no longer being used or are abandoned," said Matthew Bryant, a port project manager.
The port has spent the past year buying up the property it needs to develop the peninsula.
The port aims to salvage or recycle a good portion of the buildings and structures being torn down.
The port's demolition contracts will require contractors to divert at least 65 percent of the non-hazardous waste from landfills.
"Kaiser showed us it was possible," Bryant said.
The port completed the demolition of the former Kaiser Aluminum smelter last year.
The agency recycled more than 150 million pounds of various products from the site including steel, copper, aluminum, lead, concrete, alumina ore, oil and carbon anodes.
A few phases of the project even earned the port money as the agency benefited from selling the metals.
The first 56 structures should be demolished by the beginning of next year. The rest of the demolition will take place in 2009 and 2010, Bryant said.
The port commission meets at noon Thursday at in Room 104 of The Fabulich Center at 3600 Port of Tacoma Road.
