Port of Centralia unveils all-or-nothing proposal to lift warehouse moratorium
A development agreement, non-disclosure agreements and traffic mitigation are at the center of a proposal that could be the last chance to bring an end to a warehouse moratorium in Centralia.
"If this is not agreeable to the city, then we're just going to respect the city's 'no' and move on," Port of Centralia Commissioner Ally Pickard said during a port meeting on Wednesday, June 17.
Pickard introduced the proposal to the public for the first time during the afternoon meeting discussing the terms she and the Port of Centralia hope will bring an end to the nearly year-long Centralia warehouse moratorium.
The proposal comes roughly a week and a half after a tense question-and-answer session between the Centralia City Council and warehouse developer Logistics Property Company, LLC, (LPC), which Pickard said signed off on the new proposal.
The company is currently constructing a 600,000-square-foot warehouse along the northern part of Harrison Avenue and hopes to build more in the area if it deems it profitable.
It was the last large warehouse in the area permitted before the ongoing moratorium was established.
Pickard and Port Commissioner Peter Lahmann, the only other remaining commissioner after Kyle Markstrom's recent resignation, ratified the proposal as presented during the meeting. Lahmann was supportive overall and celebrated "communication we haven't seen in years," but still emphasized his frustration with the ongoing moratorium.
"If somebody's at your door and they have money, you're open," Lahmann said. "I've got the feeling that we are not open, and it's not the port, because we've been holding the door open for a long time."
The commissioners and port staff spent most of the first 30 minutes of the Wednesday port commission meeting discussing the terms included in the proposal letter. The proposal is broken up into seven categories, including future development, industrial traffic mitigation, zoning, environmental, annexation, community and LPC.
Stipulations include an agreement from the city to permit the construction of warehouses larger than 250,000 square feet in Port of Centralia Park 1.
Discussion during the meeting focused on a few major points, including communication between the port, city and county, traffic mitigation, and plans by the port to begin developing properties outside of its own port master plan properties. One point included plans to construct a new playground for young children on the site of the old Veterans Memorial Pearl Street Pool.
The biggest point concerning the relationship between the three local governments appears to be what the letter calls an "early coordination meeting."
The letter stipulates that all future development would start with a meeting between the port, the city and the county. It also stipulates continued joint meetings to discuss timelines, permitting and infrastructure. The meetings come with a slight catch: a non-disclosure agreement.
Pickard pitched the proposal as an attempt to improve transparency with other local governments, while recognizing that non-disclosure agreements might be frustrating to members of the public who are often seeking more information, not less.
"This is actually for me a move away from that secrecy element that the community has shared," Pickard said. "And the reason why we would have a non-disclosure agreement is simply so that we can remain competitive."
According to Pickard and Port of Centralia Executive Director Amy Graber, developers and potential business partners often require discretion and privacy around new development plans.
"A lot of them are very secretive, and so there's a way to get around that with non-disclosure agreements," Graber said.
Truck routes and changes to road infrastructure were discussed as the primary solution to industrial traffic, with an emphasis on physically separating industrial and residential traffic in the area.
As previously discussed, the port proposed implementing and enforcing truck routes through their own contracts and LPC lease agreements as well as ticketing violators with steeper fines. They also discussed contacting GPS companies to change suggested truck routes.
Concerning infrastructure, the port proposed phased changes to start with extending Gallagher Road to connect to Harrison Avenue to the north. Other changes include closing a small portion of Ives Road to the west to separate it from Gallagher, closing the Sandra Avenue railroad crossing and adding roundabouts at both the Harrison Avenue and Ives Road intersection and the future Gallagher Road and Harrison Avenue intersection.
"It's not just, 'hey, trucks drive that way,'" Pickard said. "There are roads closed and it's forced as well ... There is actual road closures to support that."
The playground appears to be just a start, as the proposal for outside development also includes a commitment from the port to "invest 25% of the net land-sale proceeds" from port parks one and two to "revitalizing other areas of Centralia."
The agreement identifies gateway corridors along with the former Papa Pete's Pizza site and the former Safeway building on North Tower Avenue as targets for port development.
Pickard reported already consulting both LPC and Lewis County Commissioner Sean Swope on the proposal. She added that, after approval by the port commission, she would present the proposal to Swope and Centralia Deputy Mayor Kelly Smith Johnston at the mediation meeting the following day. They in turn would bring the proposal to their respective local governments for consideration.
If agreed to, the terms laid out in the roughly four-page letter would be the bedrock of an agreement to end the Centralia City Council's moratorium on permitting the construction of warehouse facilities larger than 250,000 square feet in the Centralia city limits and urban growth area.
For previous reporting by The Chronicle on recent updates concerning the warehouse moratorium mediation, visit https://tinyurl.com/2waxffjj.
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