The Golden Gate Bridge district has approved a lease with the Marin Airporter for a new hub in San Rafael after district officials reclaimed the Larkspur site for added ferry parking.
The bridge district board voted Friday to approve a five-year lease with the Airporter at a 3-acre site it owns at 1011 Andersen Drive. They have been at the Larkspur site since 1985.
The Airporter will pay $20,202 a month in rent. The lease begins May 15 and the Airporter could begin operations at the San Rafael site by July 1, bridge officials said.
“The rent is fair market value and based on an appraisal,” said Denis Mulligan, bridge district general manager.
Airporter staff could not be reached for comment.
The Airporter will need to acquire use and building permits from the city of San Rafael for new structures.
The district purchased the 1.5-acre site at 300 Larkspur Landing Circle in 1983 for $1.3 million and the Airporter began leasing the property two years later.
Larkspur is the Airporter’s main terminal. The Airporter carries roughly 500 travelers in and out of the Larkspur site daily. The current lease has the Airporter paying the district $14,700 a month, or $176,400 annually.
A modular building at the Airporter site will be dismantled, bridge officials said.
The change was prompted by a dearth of parking at the Larkspur Ferry Terminal. Late-morning weekday ferry trips leaving Larkspur have limited ridership because there is nowhere for people to park after commuters fill up the lot.
There are 1,800 parking spaces at the Larkspur Ferry Terminal that are filled most weekday mornings by 8:30 a.m. throughout the year. The Airporter site will add about 330 spots to the inventory, although the net gain would be closer to 250 spaces because there already is some ferry overflow parking there.
Because of the scarcity of parking last year the district has had to limit mid-day San Francisco Giants ferry tickets to 300, despite boat capacity of 700.
The burgeoning job market has added riders to the ferry system. Ferry ridership is growing about 7 percent a year.
Changes in the tech sector have benefited the San Francisco the job market along with its surrounding counties, according to a Bay Area News Group analysis of job trends over 14 years.
The San Francisco-San Mateo-Marin region added 18,500 jobs in software, social media, computer design, network design, mobile telecommunications and Internet-related positions, a 9.2 percent increase, over the period.
“The added parking will help our ferry customers,” Mulligan said.
