March 6, 2009
By David Goll
SAN JOSE — Decades after it faded as San Jose’s
connection to the bay, a new port may once again put Alviso
on the region’s beaten track.
Local business and government officials hope to hear this
spring whether a $360,000 study into building a new port in
the quiet bayfront community that seems a relic of the region’s
past will go forward.
Pat Dando, president and CEO of the San Jose/Silicon Valley
Chamber of Commerce, said a proposal was submitted this week
to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development
Administration.
The federal agency has committed $180,000 toward such a study,
an amount that must be matched by the chamber, city of San
Jose, Santa Clara County and possibly other organizations
for the application to be approved. A new port could create
as many as 780 jobs and $285 million in annual economic benefits
to Alviso, according to Rick Callender, governmental relations
manager of the Santa Clara Valley Water District, who shepherded
the proposal through its early stages.
“In this day and age, with this tight economy, a partnership
between government and the business community that could have
a major economic impact makes a lot of sense,” Dando
said. “It leverages everyone’s limited funds.
A project like this could create great economic stimulus and
recreate the wonderful waterfront the city used to have 50
years ago. We could have restaurants and other businesses
that could grow up to serve a port.”
Dando said she hopes to hear from the Department of Commerce
in the next 30 to 60 days, but added that may be overly optimistic.
The Chamber handled the application because it could process
the paperwork more quickly as a nongovernmental agency.
Starting in the mid-1800s and continuing for about a century,
the formerly independent town annexed by San Jose in 1968
received all manner of waterborne transport — from barges
to passenger ferries — at a port that fell victim to
decline and neglect. The formerly 100-foot-wide Alviso Slough
has grown narrow and shallow from encroaching silt and vegetation.
The slough is now just 20 feet wide.
No one involved in the project envisions a Silicon Valley
version of the Port of Oakland 50 miles to the north, the
nation’s fourth-busiest container port. Instead, a new
port at Alviso would focus more on transportation than commerce,
providing a ferry port for commute and emergency-preparedness
purposes.
Jim Wunderman, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council,
a San Francisco-based public policy advocacy group representing
the region’s largest employers, has been a major proponent
of the region upgrading its fleet of ferries. He said there
will be fewer commuters on the roads and a fleet could be
pressed into action in the event of an emergency, such as
a major earthquake. And in the event an airplane crashed or
landed in the bay, a new port would provide access for emergency
workers.
“Alviso would be instrumental in bringing support,
supplies and personnel to the South Bay in the event of a
major quake that could damage bridges and roadways in the
area,” Wunderman said, noting that the only port in
the bay’s southern reaches is Redwood City. “If
the (surface) transportation network of the region failed,
water would provide the most reliable transportation option.”
He’s hopeful the port proposal won’t get bogged
down in bureaucratic wrangling or not-in-my-backyard sentiments.
“It requires some ingenuity and boldness, which we
sometimes lack here,” Wunderman said.
Callender said a new port could handle “light shipping”
and goods transport along with the ferry traffic. He and Dando
said any development would be balanced with protection of
the area’s wetlands.
“The environment will be protected,” she said.
“Cleaning out the mass root that has developed in the
waterway will allow nature to make a comeback in the Alviso
Slough.”
Echoing those sentiments was Kansen Chu, who represents Alviso
and other North San Jose districts on the City Council. He
said the water district’s Alviso Slough Restoration
Project is reintroducing salt water to parts of the slough
where freshwater vegetation has taken over. Balancing environmental
restoration with economic growth resulting from a port could
re-energize Alviso, Chu said.
In recent years Alviso has constructed a new library, community
center and schools.
“There could be so many economic benefits to the immediate
area and the region from a new port,” Chu said. “I’m
hoping we will be able to restore some of the historical buildings,
bring in new businesses and create a really vibrant community.”
| 
