Pier 96

Pier 96 is a container terminal the city has spent fifty years trying to keep occupied. The Port's own newsletter records it returning officially to the Port in 1978, after the shipping line that had held the master lease since the pier was completed in 1971 went through bankruptcy owing what it calls a staggering $2.5 million in back rent; the Port then went looking for tenants for the combined Pier 94-96 terminal, and Evergreen took preferential berthing and back-up land for its containers. Commission agendas of the same era show the small change of running a working pier — $30,000 for spare parts for the Paceco cranes, $10,000 for an electrical contractor to direct and assist crane maintenance, bids for repairs to a fork-lift at the Lighter Freight Station. The solicitations never really stopped: the Port issued a request for proposals in 2007 for a maritime terminal operation on approximately fifteen acres with 800 linear feet of berth space, and another in 2014 for a bulk export maritime terminal. What is missing is money. The Port's 10-year capital plan lists $15,377,000 of work needed at Pier 96 with the funding source recorded as "None Identified", and names the pier among the facilities that may not be viable candidates for redevelopment given the cost of rehabilitating them. Almost nothing is recorded as spent here by name: a single $5,000 payment to an advisory firm in 2023.