Grays Harbor moves forward on cold storage facility lease
Port of Grays Harbor, Wash. Commissioners this week approved a new lease with a subsidiary of Ocean Gold Seafoods for a major cold storage facility in Westport.
Under terms of the new lease, OGS subsidiary Ocean Cold will pay the port just under $70,000, about $5,800 a month, for the nearly seven-acre site. The new lease adds 2.5 acres to a previously approved lease. The port added the additional property to the lease to satisfy parking requirements and to ease City of Westport concerns over utility issues.
The unanimous approval sets the stage for the opening of the leased site's 92,000-square-foot cold storage building, built by the port at a cost of nearly $8 million. The facility, which now requires only utility and occupancy permits from the City of Westport, is needed by the local commercial fishery fleet as a curb against the rising cost of ice and to ensure catches remain fresh before processing. City officials expect the required permits to be issued with the next two weeks.
Ocean Cold, which plans to use the facility to offer Pacific Northwest fishing fleets up to 1.6 million cubic feet of cold storage, fresh fish processing, repackaging of frozen foods and value added processing, expects the facility to create up to 30 full-time jobs and an additional 300 seasonal positions.