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STEVE HUETTELGroundbreaking is today on a Port of Tampa development that will require a ship repair yard to find a new berth.
TAMPA - The Tampa Port Authority will hold a ceremonial groundbreaking today for its newest real estate deal, a development designed for warehouses, offices and facilities for a ferry that one day might sail to Cuba.
Not everybody is celebrating the 52-acre project dubbed Port Ybor.
Gulf Marine Repair Corp., a ship repair yard that dates back to 1965, will need to relocate when its lease expires in 28 months to make room for the project's last phase. And its landlord, the port authority, hasn't found a new home for the yard that employs more than 250 workers.
That worries Gulf Marine's clients and workers and their families, says owner and president Aaron Hendry. It also underscores an old complaint among the port's gritty, industrial businesses: that the port authority cares more about cruise ships and entertainment tenants.
"Sometimes they don't pay enough attention to bread-and-butter, blue-collar industry," Hendry says. "We'd hate to see the Port of Tampa become a silk-stocking port."
Port director George Williamson wrote Gulf Marine this month that his staff has identified three possible sites for the ship yard and hopes to pick one for further study by January.
"We want to keep tenants and jobs," Williamson said in an interview Monday. "If I was them, I'd want it all settled by now. A seamless transition is what probably will happen. My sense is, we'll get there."
The port authority, which oversees public land at the port, values industrial tenants, he said. But such heavy industries as Gulf Marine, across Ybor Channel from the Channelside entertainment complex and the Florida Aquarium, aren't compatible with new development in the area, Williamson said.
"We need to put these things where they'll be successful and grow," he said. "We're trying to find these guys long-term solutions that work for them and are in everyone's best interests."
Gulf is the smallest of three ship yards at the port. On Monday, three barges, three tugs and a casino boat were stacked up, one beside another, along its berths on Ybor Channel.
Workers make from $35,000 to $55,000 annually, including overtime, and keep busy throughout the year, said vice president Rick Watts. The yard was founded as Gulf Tampa nearly 40 years ago and was renamed Gulf Marine when Hendry bought it in the late 1980s.
Gulf was on a corner of the George B. Howell Maritime Center, a piece of public property that was also home to the old port authority headquarters. After the agency built a new office across Ybor Channel, Williamson decided to "unlock the value of the property," he said.
That led to plans for Port Ybor. The port authority signed a deal with developer Trammell Crow Co., to build on most of the site while retaining a portion on the water to serve ferries and specialized cargo vessels.
Today's groundbreaking will be on a 281,600-square-foot warehouse the developer is building without a tenant signed up yet, said port spokeswoman Lori Musser. Plans call for two more warehouses and two office buildings, one of them on the property now leased by Gulf Marine.
Gulf and the port authority have gone back and forth on possible relocation sites. Hendry liked property that included the old Holland Cruise Terminal. But port officials responded that the annual rent would be $4.4-million - almost 13 times Gulf's current rent.
The port has proposed two sites owned by Tampa Electric: land at the Hooker's Point plant and a coal facility near the old Gannon plant at Port Sutton.
Hendry was concerned the search had bogged down but was encouraged by a Dec. 1 letter from Williamson committing to find a site.
"We've had a bumpy road, a lot of delays and anxieties," Hendry said. "It looks like it's moving ahead. But there are two parts to it: finding a site that's comparable and within what's affordable."
- Steve Huettel can be reached at huettel@sptimes.com or 813 226-3384.