A last remnant of Fort Bragg”s industrial glory days may get new life and decades more of use — but not just yet. Last week, a plan to upgrade Baxman Gravel Company”s oceanfront operation was withdrawn, City Community Development Director Marie Jones told the Fort Bragg Planning Commission.
Dennis Kirwan, who wants to buy the 60-year-old family business had scheduled a hearing to determine if the asphalt plant could be upgraded and a modular control center installed. City staff had prepared a lengthy report including numerous color photos of the site, and staff was recommending approval of the plan. The staff report found the project in compliance with the industrial zoning for the property, city design guidelines and the Coastal Plan.
Jones told planners the application was withdrawn so the applicant could return later with an upgraded proposal that will include a new hot asphalt plant. There is currently an asphalt plant on the site, which the applicant was simply proposing to upgrade.
“Caltrans standards for asphalt have increased significantly,” Jones reported from her conversations with the parties. She said the applicant didn”t feel it was possible to simply upgrade the old plant and produce the quality materials needed for state roads.
Jones told the commission that Kirwan had been planning to obtain a 20-year lease from the Baxman family, which has owned the business for 60 years. ET “Steve” Baxman started to work shortly after World War II, “with nothing more than a dump truck, shovel, and handy gravel bank,” the company website states.
But Kirwan now feels the size of the investment required demands the property be purchased, not leased, Jones reported. The Baxman family wants to keep a portion of the site not used in the industrial operation, Jones said.
Planners were told to expect a property boundary adjustment as part of the application, which will make the proposal a much more involved effort, as it is in the Coastal Zone.
Newcomers to the area are often startled by the unexpected site of Baxman”s big trucks, gravel piles and especially its heavy, rusting postwar industrial towers and tubes. The plant resembles a collection of giant funnels and bunkers on stilts.
Just 40 feet away, tourists bike, walk and play on the old haul road, which is now one of the most spectacular California State Parks. Back when Fort Bragg was a gritty blue collar town known for its lumber mills, fishing fleet and hard drinking bars, the haul road carried heavy lumber trucks. That ended in the 1970s, but cars continued to drive the road into the mid-1980s. The road still extended all the way to Ten Mile Bridge, with a few minor breaks until big storms in the late 1980s wiped out the last few miles.
Baxman”s gravel helped build miles of logging roads during Fort Bragg”s booming post-World War II industrial era, along with providing local builders and homeowners with a resource otherwise not readily available.
While much of the oceanfront from Little River to Westport has been converted into stately second homes for people who live primarily elsewhere, Baxman has persevered while other industrial businesses were shuttered. As the former GP mill site approaches reuse as part of a lengthy process led by the City, the gravel plant and yard is preparing for decades more “original” use.
Baxman is now directly across the street from the Caltrans yard, built three years ago.
The proposal seems be a sign that Kirwan, who is in the construction business in the Santa Rosa area, sees construction activity increasing in the future locally.
That”s a change. Business activity that requires city approval has been at such a low ebb that the planners didn”t even meet for four consecutive months this winter.
Email Frank Hartzell at frankhartzell@gmail.com.
