Transferring ownership of State Pier in New London to the new Connecticut Port Authority is among the recommendations made last week in a report to the governor and General Assembly by the state's Department of Economic and Community Development.

The recommendation is that the port authority should manage State Pier and "oversight of any third-party operating/lease agreements."

The primary function of the port authority, which is expected to come into existence Oct. 1, will be to market the state's three deep-water ports: Bridgeport, New Haven and New London.

"This is the primary physical asset that the state has in the ports," said DECD Commissioner Catherine Smith, adding that the Connecticut Department of Transportation doesn't own property at the ports in Bridgeport and New Haven. New London's State Pier facility is currently under the purview of DOT.

Transferring ownership of State Pier would "allow the new port authority to find new uses, new users and try to expand the capabilities of that particular asset," Smith said.

"If (DOT) had ownership of property" at the Bridgeport or New Haven ports, she said, "we would also recommend that they be transferred."

The port authority was established by law in 2014. The law also created a working group to make recommendations to DECD to consider in the development of its report. The General Assembly would have to pass legislation to adopt the recommendations and the governor would have to sign it into law. Even if the recommendations aren't adopted, the port authority still will be created.

None of the recommendations in the report are major, Smith said.

"In many cases, we're peeling back the onion and adding detail to exactly what functions could be housed in the port authority," she said.

To start, the report recommends that the port authority be housed within DECD to minimize startup costs by using existing resources. That way the port authority won't have "to go out and hire a lot of resources like finance people, lawyers," Smith said, and instead can "focus attention on developing an economic development strategy." Using existing DECD resources to start will keep the operation small, which is beneficial given how tight the state's budget currently is.

Going forward, the recommendation is that revenues from the State Pier facility go to the port authority to support its operations.

"We really want to put the onus on the new port authority to develop its own stream of revenue to fund its own growth over time," Smith said.

According to the report, "the principal source of State revenues to support maritime operations is the operating agreements for the State Pier in New London with Logistec USA, Inc., and a lease with the Thames River Seafood Co-Op LLC."

DOT currently has two leases for the State Pier facility, according to Chuck Beck, transportation maritime manager for the department and a retired Coast Guard captain. The main lease, Beck said, is with Logistec as "terminal operator for the facility with the exemption of a small part of it for which we have a lease with the Thames River Seafood Co-op." The period of the two leases coincide, with both currently due to expire on Jan. 31, 2016.

The report says that current revenues from the facility go into the Special Transportation Fund. From fiscal year 2007 through fiscal year 2014, average revenue to the state was $393,672, with a high of $461,762 in 2014 and a low of $281,245 in 2010, according to the report.

Some of the other recommendations in the report include:

— Maintaining the port authority as a quasi-public entity

— Recommending a small appropriation to support port authority operations for its first few years

—  Directing the port authority to maintain a strategic focus on Connecticut's three deep-water ports, and to serve the other commercial port operations involving the waterborne movement of cargo and passengers

— Continuing successful state programs that support the maritime economy, particularly in smaller and mid-size harbors, and specifically giving responsibility for existing dredging programs to the port authority

"I'm optimistic," Smith said. "I think there's real potential here."

j.bergman@theday.com

Twitter: JuliaSBergman