Posted on October 1, 2018
Pieces of the port puzzle continue to land on the table to await proper placement.
The Board of County Commissioners unanimously agreed Tuesday to join the Port St. Joe Port Authority in a pre-application to Triumph Gulf Coast, Inc. for funding to dredge the federally-authorized shipping channel.
The pre-application would seek $15 million of the estimated $35 million needed to dredge the shipping channel to federally-authorized depths.
The Port Authority, using roughly $1 million in grant funds from the Florida Department of Transportation, has completed design for the infrastructure needed for spoil disposal and entered into an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the actual dredge work.
What had been initially estimated at a cost of nearly $50 million has come down, said Guerry Magidson, chair of the Port Authority, to the neighborhood of $35 million.
“We are finding traction (for this project),” Magidson said. “I think we can bring the price down even more.”
The pre-application follows the Triumph board’s decision to enter into term sheet negotiations with the county concerning a floating dry dock off the former paper mill site. The dry dock would facilitate the expansion of Eastern Shipbuilding into Gulf County.
The Triumph board, in agreeing to term negotiations, capped any grant award for the dry dock project at $13 million.
The BOCC Tuesday also approved going out for bids on the dry dock project, which the Triumph board requested as the first step in understanding the true costs of the project.
A decision, any decision, by the Triumph board on the dry dock project had been sought by the county to determine what Triumph would contribute and what other pots of money must be pursued.
The county is seeking additional grant funding from the governor’s Job Growth Fund.
The dredging of the shipping channel is all but shovel ready.
The project has secured state and federal permitting and design of the spoil site infrastructure was seen as the last major hurdle before the dredging could commence.
However, county officials, perceiving the floating dry dock as the quickest path to development of the Port of Port St. Joe, had asked and been provided full backing from the county’s various governing bodies in making the dry dock the top priority.
Now that the county understands where that project stands, Yeager said the dredging of the entire channel was a logical next step.
“I think it is the time to do that,” Yeager said of the pre-application.
Source: News Herald
