Is Richmond getting the most out of the historic SS Red Oak Victory ship at its current location?
The Richmond City Council voted 6-1 Tuesday night to spend nearly $300,000 to answer the question of whether the city should move the last surviving war vessel built at the Kaiser Shipyards during World War II to Ford Point near the Rosie the Riveter national park, a more prominent location that some city officials and ship supporters believe would attract more visitors.
The council approved a contract with Liftech Consultants, an Oakland-based marine engineering firm, to “conduct preliminary planning and design work” for moving the ship from Basin 5 at the Point Potrero terminal to the east side of the harbor near the Richmond Ferry Terminal and the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park visitor center.
Liftech will assess existing soil and environmental conditions at the proposed new site while also identifying the cost of berthing the vessel, the permitting needed and the initial design proposal — which would trigger the state’s environmental quality review process.
The contract’s term goes through June 30, 2027.
According to Port of Richmond estimates, the cost of designing, permitting and constructing the relocation could be between $16 million and $22 million and would take five years to complete — what Port Director Charles Gerrard described as a “long term” project.
The SS Red Oak Victory was built and launched in 1944 and served as an ammunition carrier in the Pacific during the war. It later supported U.S. troops in the Korean and Vietnam wars. In 1996, the U.S. Maritime Administration transferred ownership to the Richmond Museum Association and it has been sitting at Point Potrero since 1998 as a floating museum and event center.
Port volunteers and Fred Klink, director of marketing for the SS Red Oak, spoke to the council on Tuesday in support of the move, saying it would generate more revenue being near the visitor center.
According to National Park Service statistics, the Rosie the Riveter visitor center has struggled to attract the same level of visitors it had prior to the pandemic.
After the center opened in 2012, its best year was in 2016 with 64,425 visitors. Last year, the center had about 33,689 visitors.
Currently, the SS Red Oak Victory generates about $153,000 in annual revenue from visitor admissions, store sales, private events and fundraising, according to a cost-benefit analysis submitted by the ship’s organization, which projected that revenue could be increased to $950,000 to $1.2 million annually if the ship is relocated.
“The reason why the relocation is so important to all of us who work on the ship and understand the daily operation of the ship is primarily financial. As Port Director Gerard mentioned, we’re looking at about $150,000 income in our present location in shipyard number three. We feel very confident that we can do close to a million dollars in income if we were to move to the new location at Ford Point,” Klink said, adding that the Ford Point location gives the ship better public accessibility and visibility.
Mayor Eduardo Martinez, who has made revitalizing the port a main focus, agrees the ship should be moved and said that the Richmond Museum Association isn’t under the impression that a new space would be built.
“They know that this is just a study and is to help us understand what it takes to move them to another place,” Martinez said.
He also said the ship must be moved to make way for the port revitalization.
“So, it’s going to move,” he said. “It needs to move for us to revitalize the port, and I consider this as part of the revitalization of the port.”
Mayor says South Korea is interested in Red Oak Victory
Martinez also said officials from South Korea have expressed interest in purchasing the Red Oak Victory and proposed a possible arrangement during a visit to Richmond.
“They wanted to buy it so that they could fix it up for their historic museum because … (it’s) a victory ship (that) actually helped them during the Korean War,” Martinez said. “They wanted to salute that, to celebrate that.”
Under that concept, the ship would spend six months of the year docked in Richmond and six months in South Korea, with the city apparently collecting revenue from the arrangement, Martinez said.
“So if we did that, it would free up that landing for other ships to use and we could collect rent from other other ships during those six months. We also could create two special days in the city of Richmond. When the ship leaves, we would have a ship leaving celebration. When the ship comes back, we would have another homecoming celebration. This would be an extravaganza celebrating the victory ship and what the victory ship means to the city of Richmond,” he said.
Martinez did not provide documentation for that idea, and no such arrangement was referenced in the informational materials posted with the meeting agenda. South Korea has a documented historical interest in U.S. victory ships, for example, the SS Meredith Victory, a sister vessel of the Red Oak Victory built in Los Angeles, evacuated about 14,000 Korean refugees during the Korean War, and a monument to the Meredith stands in South Korea today.
Mark Epperson, director of the Red Oak Victory, which is run and maintained by volunteers, said that he estimated the ship’s annual visitor admission revenue could jump from $21,000, which was the 2025 figure at the current site, to between $400,000 and $600,000 near the Rosie the Riveter site.
“The Rosie the Riveter (national park) is free. Half of those people we get from them come over to the Red Oak Victory,” Epperson said. “Interpolating, we are going to get 20,000 (visitors) for the first year. If (48,000) to 50,000 people go (to the Rosie), we are going to get half of that.”
Wilson, who was the lone dissenting vote, challenged Epperson, saying that she wouldn’t “assume” a large percentage of people going to the free Rosie museum would pay to visit the Red Oak Victory, which currently charges $15 for self-guided tours and $20 and up for a docent-guided walk. Events on the ship usually ask for a donation and charge for refreshments.
Wilson said that although she likes the idea of moving the ship, she wanted to see what the funding path would be for the whole project before spending $300,000 on a study.
It was suggested that U.S. Rep. John Garamendi had indicated there could be federal funding to help, though Wilson said it would be less than $5 million, and that Garamendi, who is running for reelection, has not committed to it.
“What I’m seeing is a $15 million gap in the construction of the wharf and then the ongoing costs of maintaining and operating that ship,” Wilson said. “I hear what you’re saying, that you want us to sign off on the study so that we can go out and find out if someone will fund this. But I feel like what I was hoping to have in this presentation was a list of, here are some organizations or individuals or you know federal funds that go toward this sort of project. And in the absence of that, I don’t have a lot of confidence. I think we’re going to end up spending $300,000 to reach a conclusion that I’m sort of reaching tonight — that people love this ship, but nobody’s coming forward to pay for it. And I don’t think it’s the Port of Richmond that should close that gap on paying.”
The vote also drew a sharp rebuke from former Mayor Tom Butt, who emailed District 4 council member Soheila Bana Wednesday to share his perspective.
Butt, who played a role in establishing the Rosie the Riveter park and in securing the Red Oak Victory’s current berth, said the relocation plan is driven by what he described as Mayor Martinez’s vision of converting the Point Potrero Marine Terminal into an offshore wind support facility.
In the email, which was forwarded to Richmondside, he challenged the cost-benefit projections, noting that the proposed new site has no dedicated parking, no lay-down space for maintenance work, and that the Rosie the Riveter visitor center’s actual 2025 attendance of about 35,000 a year falls short of the 40,000 to 60,000 figure the Port used to estimate its visitor revenue projections for the relocated ship.
Butt also wrote that the Port’s over $200 million in deferred maintenance makes the claim that the contract to study the move is simply using “Port funds” is misleading.
“If it sounds like I am pissed, I am,” Butt wrote to Bana.
