Port still interested in Marina

Port of Bellingham director of real estate and local resident Elliott Smith told attendees at the February 9 taxpayers association meeting there was a reason why the port hadn’t allocated any money to Point Roberts in the port’s latest five-year spending plan – the port doesn’t own anything on the Point.

“The All Point Bulletin pointed out that there was no money allocated to Point Roberts in the five-year plan and that’s because we are stewards of publicly owned property, and the port doesn’t own anything in Point Roberts,” he said. “If that were to ever change, then you would see Point Roberts pop up in the budget,” adding, “But I can assure you that there is interest in Point Roberts.”

Addressing the long-standing issue of the local marina, Smith said, “We came quite far in discussions with the Point Roberts Marina a couple of years ago. We were getting ready to sign non-disclosure agreements, business, and property records, that sort of thing but then the owners of the marina decided that it was not for sale. So, we have to respect that. We’re not an organization that will take property from anyone.”

Never Say Never

“Yeah, so we watch, and we wait,” Smith continued. “If the marina ever did come up for sale, a couple of things would have to happen. There’d have to be an offer. I would have to come up with a price that would be acceptable to the current owners. I would then have to come up with a plan that would rejuvenate the infrastructure and pay for the asset in the first place. We would then have to convince the three commissioners. The cost to buy the marina could be $20 million, the cost to fix the infrastructure could equal that. But until it’s actually for sale, we just have to wait for the moment,” he said.

Smith discussed the difficulties of operating marinas in this day and age.

“Running a marina of the scale of Squalicum Harbor and Blaine is actually a lot more complicated than it used to be. The environmental stewardship, the long-term maintenance of docks and piers, the permissions required to renew things are quite complex now. All of that needs to be financed. I think Point Roberts Marina would be an ideal publicly owned asset. Until that happens, we will be as helpful as we can be to the marina,” Smith concluded.

Smith also addressed another longtime concern of Point Roberts residents – the missing boat dock at Lighthouse Marine Park. “In the meantime, we have been trying to find some ways to kind of get started and find ways that the county and the port can start to make a bigger impact here,” he said. Smith told the group that he had had conversations regarding an all-weather boat launch at the marina with county parks director Bennett Knox who had discussed it with county executive Satpal Sidhu while he personally had discussed it with port executive director Rob Fix.

The issue, he said, is the port can’t spend money to improve a privately owned facility as that would be considered a gift of public money. However, he added that marina management had expressed support for a boat launch and the port could help by offering engineering expertise.

Taxpayer association president Mark Robbins asked if the port would have any interest in buying the airport and upgrading it. There probably is no interest in acquiring it, Smith replied.

Following Smith’s remarks, the port’s economic development project manager Gina Stark discussed what her department could do to assist Point Roberts increase its economic vitality.