Glacier Fish Company’s proposal to open a number of facilities at a 58-acre waterfront property, formerly housing the Kimberly-Clark mill in Everett, Washington, has been rejected as the Port of Everett voted on Tuesday to condemn the site and convert it for public use.
The move, which saw the Port of Everett utilizing its eminent domain authority to acquire the site, would effectively block the sale of the property from Kimberly Clark to a maritime partnership between Glacier Fish and Pacific Stevedoring.
The Kimberly-Clark site closed in 2012 and the company took no position on what would happen to the property.
According to a statement from the port, the commission “believed it was in the best public interest to retain this deep-water resource in public ownership to support maritime commerce, economic development, international trade and support to the Department of Defense and other branches of the U.S. government.”
The three port commissioners voted unanimously after almost two hours of hearing public testimony from both those who supported and opposed the proposal which would see Glacier plan to introduce a cold-storage warehouse, facilities for food prep, and an office space to the site.
“I currently reside in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. I was hoping to make Everett my home,” Pacific Stevedoring owner Andrew Murphy told the Commission earlier this week. “It’s kind of frustrating that we finally get to this point and we get thrown this curveball with eminent domain.”
The companies were offered the option to lease the properties but representatives from Pacific Stevedoring and Glacier both said that they were not interested in paying millions of dollars for properties that they don’t own.
Before the area is repurposed, the current owners Kimberly-Clark are responsible for environmental cleanups and removing debris from the site’s mill demolition.
