Proponents of the planned Maritime Innovation Center in Seattle want to help Washington state get its marine mojo back.
“There are folks that are incredibly top of their field, but don’t come together,” said Fred Felleman, a commissioner for the Port of Seattle. “We have the talent.”
The hope is the Maritime Innovation Center will connect all of the pieces — tech talent, entrepreneurs, investment dollars, academic chops — to unleash new business and employment opportunities in the so-called “blue economy” while strengthening the region’s ports.
The project last week secured $32.6 million of funding from the Port of Seattle Commission, which includes $5 million from the state Department of Commerce. The facility will be located in a historic maritime site, the 109-year-old Seattle Ship Supply building at Fishermen’s Terminal near the Ballard Bridge.
It’s a significant government investment. But Joshua Berger, founder and president of Maritime Blue, said a trial run of the innovation hub approach is already proving successful.
Maritime Blue, a former Department of Commerce program that is now a nonprofit, has facilitated seven accelerator cohorts over four years with 51 marine-focused startups from the U.S. and abroad. The accelerators provide companies with three to four months of instruction and mentorships. The participating startups have raised $400 million from investors and contributed 400 jobs to the state, Berger said.
This fall, Maritime Blue will launch a Seattle startup incubator and welcomes its second cohort for its international One Ocean Accelerator. It will soon start accepting applications for the next round of its Tacoma-based incubator and its original all-purpose accelerator.
The region’s recent efforts have also attracted interest and partnerships from established, global maritime companies.
Six maritime businesses are currently subleasing offices within Maritime Blue’s location near Chinook’s restaurant at Fishermen’s Terminal. The nonprofit is slated to be the anchor tenant of the innovation center.
The new 15,000 square-foot center would provide more space for startups than the existing site and allow for meetings, events and public engagement.
“Rather than ‘if you build it, they will come,’ Berger said, “it’s ‘bring them together, and then build them what they need.'”
Connecting maritime’s past and future
The Seattle Ship Supply building is one of the Port of Seattle’s oldest existing structures. The former business offered a wide variety of maritime products at the terminal, which is a historic home base for commercial fishing. The marina is still a commercial port and has moorage for recreational craft.
To build the Maritime Innovation Center, the hulking existing structure will be shifted from its current site to a neighboring parking lot.
“This is a 100-plus year-old building that is on piles that have been there as long, and [it’s] on unstructured fill,” said Kyra Lise, the port’s director of real estate development. It needs a foundation “strong enough to withstand the impact of a significant seismic event.”
Estimates for the project shared in 2021 put its cost at $20 million. The price tag spiked after engineers realized the foundation work would be much more difficult and as inflation drove up building supply costs, Lise said.
The center will be highly environmentally efficient, aiming for Living Building Challenge certification. It will be solar-powered, collect its rainwater for reuse, and incorporate massive salvaged wood beams from the original structure. Building a sustainable structure will have upfront costs; Lise estimated they added only 2% to the price, but said the number was hard to calculate. Over time, the amount could be recouped given the building’s efficient energy and water use.
The port’s project includes improvements to make Fishermen’s Terminal more accessible and safe for public visitors while supporting commercial activities. Long-term plans include converting another port structure at the terminal, called the Gateway Building, into space for light industrial manufacturing.
Work for the Maritime Innovation Center expects to break ground in 2024 and be completed by the end of 2025.
Greening the blue economy
As leaders in Washington aim to expand its maritime industry overall, they’re also angling to make the state a leader in climate-friendly marine innovation, building on initiatives that are already underway.
Those include:
- Corvus Energy, a Norway-based global leader in maritime batteries, in January opened a battery manufacturing facility in Bellingham, Wash.
- Kirkland, Wash.-based ioCurrents — a startup using AI to help maritime fleets and vessels cut their fuel use, manage maintenance needs and prevent mechanical failures — has expanded globally since launching in 2015.
- All American Marine shipyard in Bellingham completed construction of the first hydrogen-powered passenger ferry in the U.S., which is based in San Francisco.
- On Tuesday, Washington’s Department of Transportation announced that it awarded a $150 million contract to ship builder Vigor to convert up to three of its ferries to hybrid-electric vessels.
- OCOchem, a Richland, Wash.-based energy startup, is doing a pilot project with the Port of Tacoma to provide clean hydrogen fuel for some of its operations.
“We already have all the parts and pieces to be a global leader,” Berger said, “whether it’s implementing AI, or fuels of the future, or the capital here that’s now paying attention to industrial sectors.”
On top of that, Berger said, is Washington’s progressive climate policies, cheap and clean electricity, and strength in innovation. “We just need to make sure folks are paying attention to maritime and oceans as well,” he added. “And that’s what we’re starting to do.”
