From the Thurston County Assessor's property lookup website

The Capitol Center block:
410 4th - 370K
411 4th - $1.9 million
420 4th - 406K
405 5th (the high-rise) - $9.7 million

The Image Source parcel (formerly known as KFChicken)- $1.7 million

Triway's land
The parcel next to Image Source, which Triway owns now - $1.8 million
(Bought by Triway for $1.3 million in 2003)
And the Housing Authority parcel - which Triway has an option on - $1.2 million

Traditions Parcel - which the City's already going to buy - 296K

Grand Total - $20,036,000

It's still a lot of money, and that's only assessed market value. It's probably actually worth somewhat more. But it's not unthinkable as a combined City/State project over the long-term. (The parking garage the city's discussing in The Olympian today would run roughly $20 million - though they'd get parking fees to pay it off.)

More to the immediate point, Triway's piece, which is what's at stake right now, is worth somewhat over $3 million, not $250 million.

I'm not counting Bayview or the Oyster House, since they aren't in the rezone request, and I haven't talked to anyone who's interested in a park who is thinking about getting rid of them. They'd actually be a genuine "urban edge" to a park. And if the rest of the rezone request were park, then leaving the Traditions strip too and having cafe tables out in the fountain park behind those low buildings might be quite nice.

I can't imagine where the Council member you talked to came up with $250 million... solid gold benches?

From: Robert Whitlock
To: inquiries@portolympia.com
Date: 06/30/2008 01:42 PM
Subject: Container Cranes

Hello,

I submitted a question via the web form, but sometimes those don't work, so I will follow it up again with an email.

My question is about the Port of Olympia's two Marine Terminal container cranes.

When were the cranes installed?

What was the financial cost of installing the cranes?

And finally, how many times have the cranes been used to move containers?

Thank you,

Robert Whitlock

Dear Mr. Whitlock,

This is to respond to the questions listed in your e-mail below.

The Port of Olympia's two gantry cranes were obtained from the Port of Los Angeles in 1997 and were delivered to Olympia by barge. The Port paid at total of about $2.6 million to purchase, transport and make necessary modifications to the two cranes. The $2.6 million is figure includes about $630,000 to purchase the Star (southernmost) crane, $0 to purchase the Paceco (northernmost) crane, $1,000,000 for transportation of both cranes, and $1,000,000 for improvements to the Paceco. For comparison, it would cost in the range of $7 to $8 million today to purchase and install one crane.

From May 1997 through October 1998, the cranes were used for each vessel that called at the Port for Sunmar, the Russian Far East container shipper, which operated in Olympia during that time. About 25 vessels called during that 18-month period, or about one vessel every three weeks. Sunmar terminated service to Olympia in 1998 due to the unforeseen collapse of the Russian Far East economy.

Since 1998, the cranes have been used to load and unload a variety of cargoes. For example, they were used in 2007 to handle heavy mining equipment and earlier this year to unload two yachts that came from Australia atop a vessel transporting crushed garnet. Since 1998, the cranes have been used an average of about 350 hours per year

The Port competes with other ports in Washington and Oregon that specialize in handling oversized marine cargo and general cargo referred to as "break bulk". Adequate crane capacity and capability is an important consideration in a carrier’s selection of a port to load and unload their cargo. Although many vessels today come equipped with cranes, dockside cranes give customers equipment backup should a vessel's cranes go down. For example, this occurred twice in 2006, once an export log vessel and once on an aluminum vessel.

Thank you for your interest in the Port of Olympia. If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Ed Galligan
Executive Director

Instead envisioning walls, we should focus on placement of present and future development in regions of the urban core that will be safe from sea-level rise (given predicted worst-case scenarios.) Future and current development and planning must, similarly, focus on an intensive push to dramatically and drastically reduce - and hastily eliminate - global warming (climate disruption causing) pollution.

One of the methods is to increase housing density. So the isthmus high rises do have that going for them. But that is not enough. We also must have jobs for those in the new dense housing centers so it is possible to walk to places of employment. Mass transit can play a huge role in that...

From my perspective, it is wrong to plan for future sea-level change with the idea of putting up barriers, while still contributing to the pollution that will cause the sea-level change. The bulk of the efforts must be toward creating a truly sustainable society - bringing green house gas emissions down to a truly sustainable level.

Additionally, with the prospect of an increasingly dense urban core, it strikes me as an excellent idea, really a matter of critical importance, to protect the great open space of the isthmus, for the enjoyment of all.