MEMO - SECOND DRAFT
To: Charles Gerard, Director of the Port of Richmond
From: Bill Lee, Land Econ Group
Re: Assistance with Lease Negotiation for Basin 4
Date: August 14, 2026
CC: Nannette Beacham, Economic Development Director
Lizeht Zepeta and Soco Montore
Introduction
Basin 4 of the Point Potrero Marine Terminal is currently leased to Alcatraz Cruise Tours which uses it for vessel or equipment storage and occasional vessel repair. Their lease expires in October of 2026.
STAX Engineering has approached the Port indicating interest in leasing this basin and plans to use it for barge docking and emission capture operations. The Port issued an RFP for the leasing of Basin 4, and STAX was the only respondent. This memo, therefore, focuses on STAX Corporation.
STAX is an environmental technology company that provides mobile emissions capture for ships while they are docked in port. Its system uses specially equipped barges to bring the emission control system directly to the ship’s smokestack to remove pollutants before they enter the atmosphere (Figure 1).
This technology has been approved by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) for several classes of vessels, including container ships, auto carriers and tankers. This STAX technology has received 19 patents with two more pending.
STAX Engineering Inc.
STAX was founded in 2016 and has been growing rapidly. Headquartered in Long Beach, the firm has received several rounds of investment funding with the latest round being $150 million from Bain Capital which allows the firm to scale up its maritime emissions capture ahead of CARB’s 2027 tanker compliance deadline.1 Its interest in Basin 4 is part of this scale up strategy. STAX will establish Basin 4 as its Northern California Emissions Control Hub and will service ships docking at the Port of Richmond 1 STAX Engineering press release 30 June, 2026
2 and in the Carquinez Strait. Initially two or three barges will be based at Basin 4, and as demand scales the number could grow to four to six barges.
For the Port of Richmond, the stationing of a dedicated fleet of STAX barges alleviates the Port’s need to install power and pollution control equipment at multiple terminals at significant expense and improves the Port’s competitive position relative to its competition. The Richmond City Council approved $2.25 million in funding to secure a dedicated STAX barge fleet by guaranteeing a minimum level of utilization with the expectation that demand for such services will grow as additional vessel types become subject to CARB requirements in 2027. By basing the dedicated barges at the Port, STAX is also bringing approximately 125 year-round maritime and technical jobs into the city.
Figure 1: STAX Barge Extracting Pollutants from Ship in Port Currently Lease Profile
The current lease profile for Point Potrero Marine Terminal (PPMT) is displayed in Table 1 below, and the terminals are mapped in Figure 1.
3 Table 1: Existing Tenants and Lease Rates at PPMT
The current average monthly lease including the larger finger piers is slightly over $17,800. The average lease for Basins 1, 2 and 4, which are comparable to the basin that STAX is seeking, is approximately $13,300.
Figure 2: Map of Point Potrero Marine Terminal and Tenants The Importance of STAX Barge to Richmond
A dedicated STAX barge fleet is important to the City and Port in several ways:
4 • It extracts pollutants from ships docked at the Port of Richmond to allow the port to satisfy current and future CARB requirements. This maintains the Port of Richmond’s competitive position relative to other California ports that provide alternative docking to visiting ships. • It alleviates the Port of Richmond from having to incur the capital expenditures to install power and pollution extraction equipment at multiple docks and the staff to operate such equipment. • It improves the air quality for the North Bay communities. • While the City did make an investment in securing a dedicated fleet of STAX barges, its Port will eventually recover that investment by collecting Environmental Services Tariff charges from ships that use the port.
• STAX intends to invest approximately $250,000 per year in improvements to Basin 4. This will result in spending for goods and services in Richmond.
• STAX with its barge fleet will bring approximately 125 new marine and technical jobs to Richmond resulting in a significant economic development contribution.
Recommended Leasing Terms
Because securing a fleet of dedicated STAX barges is more important to the City of Richmond than simply gaining a lucrative commercial lease, we recommend that the Port offer a favorable lease based upon comparable leases rates rather than use its leverage to extract maximum revenue. We recommend a negotiation range of $16,000 to $18,000 per month with a CPI escalator of not less than three and not more than five percent per year. As the port improves its competitive position over time, the monthly lease will increase with inflation; and the Port will earn growing wharfage and other tariff revenue.