Port of Quincy OKs 2019 budget, sets ribbon cutting for new tenant

QUINCY — Commissioners overseeing the Port of Quincy approved an $8.5 million budget for 2019, including $2.5 million for a major new manufacturing facility in one of its Quincy industrial parks.

According to Curt Morris, president of the three-member commission that manages the sprawling Port of Quincy, the new facility is being paid for by a 20-year bond. Tacoma-based Raceway Technology will then lease the $2.5 million facility, which will be located in the same Quincy industrial part that hosts the port’s intermodal terminal, for 20 years.

“The port will build the facility,” Morris said. “We will start in 2019. There will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony in January, but we’re still in the process of engineering the building, and there will be no digging in January.”

Raceway Technology fabricates PVC joints for underground utility lines. The Quincy facility will be the company’s second production center, and according to company owner Josh Paul will employ 30-40 people “during the first year.”

Around $6.4 million of the budget’s anticipated $12.6 million in revenue is slated to come from the expected sale of roughly 164 acres in four of the port’s industrial parks. However, the sales aren’t final, and are still be negotiated.

“We have letters of intent, and assuming they will all come through, we’ll have that $6.4 million,” Morris said.

The port district’s three largest projected sources of revenue are $800,000 from the district’s operating levy of 18.6 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, $371,700 from the Colockum Ridge Golf Course and $252,000 in fees from users of the port’s intermodal facility in Quincy.

The district expects to start 2019 with a cash balance of $1.7 million, and the 2019 budget anticipates the port will end the year with just over $4 million in the bank.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.