Should Seattle and Tacoma consolidate into one container port?

Competition from ports just up and down the road and on both coasts. A squeeze from competing land uses and developers with an eye on its property. Traffic snarls on the roads leading to and from its container-handling terminals.

The Port of Seattle doesnt lack for threats and challenges to its future. In fact, those threats and challenges add up to a long-term, overarching question about the ports future. Specifically, the question is this: Does the port have a future, at least in the seaborne cargo-container business?

Ports dont stay the same in perpetuity. San Francisco was once the West Coasts leading freight port until the rise of competitors and containers and its own land squeeze consigned it to also-ran status. The Port of Seattle itself has moved from the central waterfront and unloaded businesses such as auto imports. The present-day site of container Terminal 18 once handled bananas. And its not as though the Port of Seattle would be out of the marine sector entirely if much or all the container business went elsewhere; it would still have grain exports, the fishing fleet and cruise-ship calls.

As for the economic impact on the region, a reduction in container volumes would be felt in the immediate industrial area and by the city itself. But developers who have suggested other uses, especially for prime property now occupied by two container terminals on the eastern shore of Elliott Bay, say such a shift might generate more overall economic activity. A decade before Chris Hansens arena idea surfaced, Nitze-Stagen proposed redeveloping Terminal 46 with offices, retail, residences, a park area and a basketball arena.

For the Puget Sound region as a whole, the effect might be minimal to none if those shipping volumes move to Tacoma, a port that is at least as convenient to the distribution centers of the Kent Valley as Seattle is.

Can the Port of Seattle remain a viable long-term player in the container business? Should it?

Port of Seattle Commissioner Tom Albro believes the answer to both questions is yes. We will need all the seaport capacity we can get, he says. Both Seattle and Tacoma have room to grow, even (in Seattles case) with the urban area crowding in.

The recession-driven drops in container volumes shouldnt obscure the longer-run trend of growth in the container business, Albro notes, adding that growth is resuming. Container volumes at the Port of Seattle in both 2010 and 2011 topped 2 million TEUs (2012 was down because of the shift of a major customer to Tacoma). Market conditions can change pretty quickly, he says. We have to look at our states economic interests in the long term and not gauge our strategies by the movement of near-term market forces.

Seattle and Tacoma will remain a place for shipping lines to call, he adds, because the local market, while not the size of Los Angeles, is certainly larger than Prince Rupert. Shippers also like having both Seattle and Tacoma because of the differences in ship calls and because they can divide volumes between the two, an attractive option in times of temporary jams, he explains.

The economic importance of keeping Seattle in the containerport game extends well beyond the city and the immediate industrial area, Albro says. With both ports having increased exports of Washington-produced manufacturing and agricultural products on their list of goals, the state will benefit from having two large deep-water ports, each with capacity to grow.

Its good for the state to have two ports, Albro asserts. Theyll be sized to our economy and our place in the market, and there will be ebb and flow, but theres no question theyre essential and beneficial.