LONDOM: The new Northwest Seaport Alliance is in a position to compete for global cargo traffic, but that’s going to require $1 billion in investments over the next decade.
John Wolfe, Tacoma-based CEO of new maritime partnership between the ports of Seattle and Tacoma, said the focus of investment will be on the eight container terminals shared between the two ports, and how to get cargo through them more quickly and more cheaply.
“We have before us the chance to write the next chapter for this great gateway for maritime business and trade,” he said.
Some of the work will be to expand some terminals to handle bigger ships, and to dredge some of the already-deep waterways to allow those ships in.
The Seaport Alliance’s key advantage, Wolfe said, is that it will allow the two commissions to target the limited financial resources to the places where they can be best used to make the region more competitive, rather than having the ports compete against each other as they have in the past.