Port Plans Ready to Go

Port St. Joe’s waterfront is about to get busy again.
On Dec. 4 the Port St. Joe Port Authority held a joint workshop with the Port St. Joe city officials to present the Port’s comprehensive plan as preparation for the city’s approval.
Included in the inches-thick proposal were plans, charts, graphs and courtesy reviews by participating agencies.
According to Tommy Pitts, director of the Port, as word has filtered out that the Port of Port St. Joe is heading toward an opening, the number and frequency of inquiries about the Port has increased significantly.
The Port Authority purchased a 22-acre section of land just west of Industrial Road in 2000.
In order to make the Port a reality, it then purchased the first of two necessary parcels of land - Parcel B - at the end of 2005. Parcel B is located on the north side of the Tapper Bridge between the Gulf County Canal and Industrial Road.
Grant awards for the purchase and expenses for the 22-acre and Parcel B totaled $2,850,000, with a matching grant from the Port Authority, for a total of $5,700,000.
The dollars used by the Port St. Joe Port Authority for matching grants come from a fund established in the early 1980s with funds left from a bond issue, Pitts said.
The Port Authority also established a line of credit and both sources of cash are used to match grants, he explained.
The Port Authority hopes to purchase what they call Parcel A in the future.
Parcel A is the section of land south of the Tapper Bridge that runs between the mouth of the Canal and the old paper mill site. It is owned by the St. Joe Company.
Plans in the five to 10 year range include further development of Parcel B with rail access, and developing a 35-foot deep water access at the mouth of the channel just south of the bridge.
Purchase and development of Parcel A is also figured into the five to 10 year plan.
However, according to Pitts, those plans, especially development of the deep water channel, may move up in time because some of the potential customers of the Port need the 35-foot channel soon, Pitts said.
Pitts told the group that the 35-foot deep water channel would be able to accommodate smaller ocean-going vessels.
He added that the Tapper Bridge would not be a problem for vessels passing under it because bridge clearance is 70 feet.
According to Pitts, former long-time Port St. Joe resident and U.S. Senator George Tapper, for whom the bridge is named, paid additional funds when the bridge was built to raise the bridge height from the standard 65 feet to 70 feet.
A number of grants have already been secured by the Port Authority for the dredging of the north section of the Gulf County Canal, next to Parcel B, and the construction of the necessary bulkhead at that location.
For fiscal year 2007-08, a total of $2,847,000 has been allocated in a 75-25 percent matching grant for the dredging and bulkhead of Parcel B.
In 2008-09 another 75-25 percent matching grant for $1,400,000 has been awarded to the Port Authority.
An additional 50-50 percent matching grant of $1,360,000 will go to upland improvements to Parcel B in 2008-09.
Funds have also been applied for, and the Port Authority has received notice that the grant has been approved, for rail access to Parcel B, to be available in fiscal year 2008-09.
The amount of the grant will be $912,000, with an equal match of funds.
The St. Joe Company has committed $1,200,000 for environmental permitting, with an additional $600,000 from the Port Authority for the permitting.
Allen Cox, chair of the Port Authority, told the group that “now, with grants secured, we will be working in the next few weeks with the engineers for the plans.
“We want to go out for bid in March and start dredging in April,” Cox told the group, adding that the Parcel B dredging and bulkhead construction was “probably a six-month construction project.
“We hope to have vessels docking in 10 to 11 months (September or October),” Cox said.
“Strategically we’re in a very, very unique capacity with this port,” he continued, explaining that Florida governor Charlie Crist had “taken a particular interest in the Port St. Joe Port.”
“We’re the best opportunity in Florida to become a strategic intermodal seaport,” Cox said, adding that potential port customers were “very pleased” to plan two to four years ahead.
Pitts told the gathering that most of the inquiries from interested customers were green-energy related, and a very possible role for the Port was as a supply location for offshore energy exploration. He indicated that companies with vessels that carry supplies and crews to offshore oil exploration rigs were interested in Port St. Joe because Port St. Joe was going to be about 125 miles away from the next oil rig opening in the Gulf of Mexico in March of 2008.
Pitts also said that most of the other ports in Florida were “very supportive” of Port St. Joe because many of the existing ports were already at capacity, including the Port of Panama City, which now has an inter-local agreement with the Port of Port St. Joe.
An additional benefit of the port, according to both Pitts and Cox, is that the Florida Department of Transportation has indicated it will fast-track the four-laning of S.R. 71 from Port St. Joe to Wewahitchka and north, if a sufficient number of potential port customers make firm commitments to the Port, citing the need for a better transportation system than currently exists in order to move a minimum amount of tonnage.
According to Pitts and Cox, FDOT indicated this commitment was the only way S.R. 71 would become a four-lane route.
The Port St. Joe Port Authority was created in the mid-1950s by the state legislature. It is an independent special district, not affiliated with the city or county, according to Pitts.
Port Authority members are appointed by the governor and none of its funding comes from city or county money.