Cargo Crunch

PORT HUENEME —  Last year, Port of Hueneme officials hailed the acquisition of 33 acres of former military land as the long-awaited answer to the tiny facility’s perennial lack of space.

But a year after ownership of the much-needed land, valued at about $9 million, was transferred last March, business has grown so rapidly that officials again are lamenting the dearth of available cargo-storage room.

“These are problems we like to have, but we’re back to the same old story,” port spokesman Kam Quarles said. “A year after expanding the port by 50%, we’re back to capacity again. . . . We would like to absorb far more of the business than we’re turning away and right now it’s going the other way--we’re turning away far more than we can absorb--and that’s purely because we don’t have the space.”

Car imports have climbed 20%, partly because the port has more land to park them on, but also because Asia’s economic woes have meant lower prices for U.S. consumers.

Banana imports, which reached 196,000 tons last year, are expected to almost double this fiscal year after the port signed a new contract in November with the world’s largest exporter of the fruit.

And a Norwegian company is expected to break ground within two months on a 3-acre facility--on a portion of the port’s new property--to handle liquid fertilizer. That project should provide half a dozen jobs and boost revenues by $300,000 a year.

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All this has put the port--the only deep-water harbor between Los Angeles and San Francisco--far ahead of its own schedule in converting the crumbling Navy facility to more profitable uses.

“We anticipated that once the Navy gave us the property it would be three to five years before it would be fully utilized,” Quarles said. “Because of the business that’s coming to the port, the property is being fully used right now and will be fully absorbed and converted into the port in a year and a half.”

But it’s not only the port that has met with success with the land that formerly housed the Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory, which moved its 500 workers to a sleek state-of-the-art building on the neighboring Seabee base.

The city, which has jurisdiction over 10 acres of the site and plans to use half its space for an aquaculture business park, has commitments for all 10 available 17,500-square foot lots.

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Nine companies and one nonprofit consortium could occupy the sites by late fall or early winter, raising such products as abalone, sea urchins and sea bass and processing kelp for pharmaceutical products, said Dick Keller, an Oxnard real estate consultant who is acting as the project’s property manager.

The venture is expected to create 50 to 100 jobs and possible educational spinoffs in conjunction with local community colleges or Cal State Channel Islands.

“It could be a kind of lightning-rod project,” Keller said. “It will draw attention from educators up and down the coasts and companies from Asia and South America. It’s just one of those things whose time has come.”

To prepare the former military land for use, about $700,000 has been spent to demolish dozens of decrepit buildings dotting the site. The destruction will end in about six weeks and construction of a modern marine terminal will begin, Quarles said.

The new fencing, lighting and paved parking lots that will be installed by the end of the year don’t capture the imagination in the way more high-profile economic development efforts do, officials concede. But the value of such basic improvements is undisputed--large lots are ideal for stacking refrigerated containers filled with bananas or for parking cars awaiting importation.

Still, municipal officials hope to see more of the kind of development proposed by the Norwegian company Hydro Agri, which brings in substantially more money.

The cash-poor city needs such projects, considering that the bill to repair a deteriorating sea wall and build a trail on 5 acres set aside for recreational purposes could reach $3.5 million, said City Planner Greg Brown. Not surprisingly, the proposed hiking trail is probably a long way off.

“We’re chewing on a big nut here in trying to fund the demolition and the improvements,” Brown said. “The sea wall and the public access are kind of extraordinary improvements. We’re trying to defer those as long as we can.”

What will bring in more money--the city receives 6.25% of the port’s gross revenues, a cut that last year amounted to $438,000--is a further expansion of the port.

To do that, officials have resurrected negotiations with the Navy for use of a 1,050-foot wharf and an adjacent 25 acres of land that would further increase the port’s cargo-handling capability and its revenues.

“It’s real important because we’re talking about the potential for another 50% to 75% increase in port activity,” said Mike Plisky, president of the Oxnard Harbor Commission, the port’s governing board.

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Executive Director Bill Buenger said he hopes that an agreement is consummated by year’s end.

Another possibility for more growth is a long-vacant oceanfront lot adjacent to the port, known locally as the Sunkist site, that city officials regard as the missing link between the existing Hueneme Beach Park and recreational access to the former Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory land.

A variety of ambitious projects have been proposed for the 11-acre site over the years. But with the asking price as much as $13 million, none of the proposed developments has materialized.

However, the site’s former owners were foreclosed upon last year and the land is now available for a relatively cut-rate $5 million, said Ted Broedlow, president of Long Beach-based Signal Mortgage Co., which advertised the land recently in the Wall Street Journal.

“We’ve had several people look at it that are interested in doing something port-related,” Broedlow said. “I guess our most recent interest is the combination of a hotel and mixed-use residential project.”

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Although no one believes that development there is imminent, the fact that people are even looking at the prime piece of property again after so long is regarded as a positive sign for the area.

“Things are really rocking and rolling down there,” Quarles said of the port’s surge in activity. “It has been great to see. This should be one of the most rapid conversions in the country for [such a] property. . . . In order to keep up with demand, we have to do this faster. We’ve got to stay ahead of our competitors.”