Five years since it first submitted a proposal for a floating dry dock and ship repair facility, and later withdrew it, Gulf County is renewing its effort to secure millions of dollars for the project from Triumph Gulf Coast.

Jim McKnight, director of the Gulf County Economic Development Coalition, said the original proposal was reworked, with the Port St. Joe Port Authority now as co-applicant.

That move was prompted by the hope that $15 million in dredging monies, previously awarded to the Port by Triumph, could be shifted to the dry dock proposal, although McKnight said last week that preliminary indications are that Triumph doesn’t favor doing that. “I’m not optimistic,” he said, noting that the new proposed dredging would be 10 feet deeper than the 24 feet depth at present.

What will become key to the applications success, in securing as much as $42.5 million – the $15 million in dredging monies and another $27.5 million in new monies – will be Gulf County’s ability to meet the performance metrics, essentially job creation numbers, that Triumph requires a proposal meet.

The county is proposing to include a request for $3 million, championed by County Commissioner Randy Pridgeon, to place a maritime academy on Port property that would train students in the trades needed to operate the facility.

“They liked the idea but thought it was a separate project,” McKnight said. “We don’t need it if it (the dry dock) doesn’t go forward. Why train them if they’re not needed?”

The application outlines a scenario where the overall cost of the dry dock would be about $124 million, with other funding sources be a $45 million investment from Eastern Shipbuilding Group; a Gulf County bond of $21.5 million; $11 million in state grants; and $4 million in state and federal appropriations.

The dry dock, slated to be designed by Heger Dry Dock, Inc., has received letters of support from various organizations throughout the region, including the Franklin County Board of County Commissioners.

McKnight has proposed that the facility would create 125 jobs in vessel outfitting and 90 in repair haulout, as well as 563 permanent indicted full-time jobs based on a multiplier of 2.62. 

Without including the dredging dollars shift that would mean Triumph funding per job would be about $27,500.

“They have some performance metrics that work against us sometimes,” McKnight said. “We’re back reworking it.

“This is a step in the right direction,” he said. “We’re trying to find other metrics. It all has to be worked out. We’re trying to find ways to sweeten that deal.”

McKnight said one addition to the metrics could be the estimated 500 construction jobs that would go on over 18 months.

“It will be a much different application as far as the dollar amounts,” he said. “It’s a work-in-progress. We’re going to get closer.”

Once the project were to receive tentative approval, which it hasn’t yet, it would take at least three meetings to get the project approved.