Developing maritime services, not high tech, is where South Sound should focus its energy

In the economic development game, the most effective strategy for long-term success (as measured by job creation) is to leverage the assets and strengths you’ve got, not the ones you wish you had or that everyone else already has.

In the case of Tacoma, that means taking advantage of the fact that the city sits on a very large, very usable body of water.

The news was somewhat buried at the time — you might have read, there are a few other stories going on at the moment — but there are encouraging signs that Tacoma is moving to use that fortuitous bit of location to build its economy.

Tacoma has a long heritage and legacy built on maritime commerce, especially shipping and trade and boatbuilding. It’s not as glamorous a sector as those everyone else is chasing — cities, regions and entire nations have spent the last 50 years trying to create the next Silicon Valley, to little avail — but a presence on the water and some experience in how to build an economy based on that are strategic assets not a lot of communities can mimic. The tech sector remakes itself every month; the water is always going to be there.

Recognition of that reality is now figuring into state and regional economic development thinking in very specific ways.

The federal government recently issued a $600,000 grant to Washington Maritime Blue, the consortium looking to build the state’s maritime commerce sector with an emphasis on developing environmentally friendly technologies such as electric power for vessels. That grant is to be matched by an equal amount from the Washington State Department of Commerce, the Port of Seattle, the City of Tacoma Office of Community and Economic Development and Tacoma Power.

A key component in the use of funds from the grant includes developing a maritime business incubator program in Tacoma similar to what already exists in Seattle. (The announcement also mentions plans to support maritime-business entrepreneurs in such communities as Everett, Anacortes, Bellingham and Bremerton.)

Details haven’t been released yet on the Tacoma incubator, but a look at the roster of projects in the Seattle accelerator gives some indication of the kinds of ventures that might be included: systems for treating marine-engine exhaust and ballast water, electric outboard motors for recreational boating, snack foods made from seafood and a digital platform for connecting truckers and shippers.

What people enrolled in an incubator program get are counseling, mentoring and connections, all vital to fledgling entrepreneurs trying to develop not just technologies but companies to commercialize them and markets of customers to buy them. Not all of these will succeed or even make it to market. But if we’re going to have an entrepreneur-driven recovery — an argument made in this space recently — then it matters if we have a robust environment for encouraging startups.

Meanwhile, another argument made over the years by this column is that the international trade and logistics sector, as much as it already contributes to the local economy, could be doing a lot more if Tacoma was where those companies based their headquarters. The port is here, the intermodal connections are here, the expertise in warehousing and distribution is here, so the management, planners and decision-makers should be here, too. There’s no reason for those companies to be in the high-rent district of Seattle where they won’t be noticed or appreciated anyway.

The Economic Development Board for Tacoma-Pierce County has launched a trade logistics cluster team, populated by representatives of the port, local government and companies involved in the sector for doing business on the Tideflats. The plan is to have a group specifically working on short-term issues and long-term concerns, such as land-use planning, and develop a strategy for encouraging growth in the trade and logistics business.

Not everything water-related will blossom into a thriving business sector. Some years back Tacoma applied for and received a designation as one of the state’s innovation partnership zones, with a focus on urban clean-water technology. It’s no longer a participant in that program and the IPZ designation has lapsed.

“The IPZ provided a branding opportunity and was used in many of our outreach efforts but provided little or no additional benefit beyond that,” says James Parvey, division manager for the city’s Office of Environmental Policy and Sustainability. “In 2015 the city considered not recertifying, but ultimately decided to continue with the program. In 2019, due to the marginal benefits from the program and lower staffing levels, we decided not to recertify our IPZ designation, and instead continued to focus on our other efforts such as the WellSpring Conference.”

But that’s the nature of economic development. Not everything works, but nothing works if you don’t even try. Even the gargantuan projects that miraculously drop from the sky require some planned effort — and those are exceedingly rare, difficult and expensive to land. Better to expend time, energy and money on developing something that’s already here.