Top Port of Portland managers are endorsing the agency's move from downtown into a new building at Portland International Airport.
Bill Wyatt, the Port's executive director, said Wednesday that he would ask the agency's nine commission members to approve the move at their regular meeting Wednesday. His recommendation ties construction of a new headquarters to plans for a new airport parking structure.
Although approval is not assured, the commission generally approves staff recommendations.
The seven-story garage project, which could break ground as soon as August, is planned next to the existing terminal garage. The headquarters would add three stories on top of part of the new garage, designed for 3,500 spaces. Total cost estimate: $231 million.
The garage plan has been in the works for 18 months, with midweek parking demand so high that the new structure has appeared to be a foregone conclusion. But as recently as June, Wyatt was saying that the combined project's total price tag was high enough that he wasn't sure he could recommend the headquarters portion.
The offices would cost about $69 million. Wyatt and other managers say the Port stands to save money in the long run by locating most employees in one building instead of splitting them between the airport and downtown.
Although the Port is a public agency and is in part supported by property taxes, the garage-headquarters construction would be financed from an airport fund supported primarily by parking revenue. If the headquarters is built, the Port would pay that fund roughly $600,000 annually in rent.
Furthermore, if the existing headquarters is sold, it could bring as much as $28 million into the Port's general fund. Wyatt said the money would help pay the Port's debts for cleaning up the polluted Willamette River, and for other projects.
The Port's current office building in Old Town was completed in 1999 for $20 million.
Wyatt and Steve Schreiber, the Port's chief financial officer, said the agency expects to save $3 million to $4 million annually by eliminating duplicated costs such as reception areas and security in separate buildings. They said Port employees spend about 15,000 hours a year driving between downtown and airport offices -- the equivalent of work performed by more than seven full-time positions.
Additionally, they said, a move to the airport signals a shift in the relative importance between the Port's air and marine activities. While Wyatt is careful not to dismiss the value of shipping activities to the region, the agency's operating revenue from the airport is nearly triple that generated by marine operations.
That's a stark change from the mid-1990s, when the two figures were roughly equal.
"The Port's center of gravity has clearly shifted in the last decade to aviation," Wyatt said.
Source: ALEX PULASKI, The Oregonian
XML Feeds
