Due to an increasingly bleak economic future, Jacobsen's Marine has announced it will move Feb. 1 to West Seattle, after owners told the Herald's sister publication, the Ballard News-Tribune, last October it planned on staying in the community.

Its new location is set to open at 2625 Harbor Ave. S.W. in West Seattle.

Greg Jacobsen owns the land in West Seattle and said he decided Dec. 30 to move Jacobsen's Marine to that location when it became apparent that the country's economic situation was not going to improve anytime soon and was hitting the boat-selling business especially hard.

"It's an expendable item people don't need," he said. "So, we're suffering."

Jacobsen said it was a difficult decision to move the business and one that he made entirely on his own. His parents and grandparents went to Ballard High School and he grew up in the neighborhood, he said.

"If you had asked me five years ago, I would have said there is no way we would be leaving Ballard," he said.

In 2007, owners of Jacobsen's Marine, a Ballard business since 1951, said it planned to move to the Port of Edmonds. At that time, they told the News-Tribune they would be leaving the property in Ballard to build a new home at the Port of Edmonds because the Ballard property was getting too valuable and was ill suited to the larger sport-fishing boats that have become the norm.

The deal, which was close to being finalized June 2007, fell through this past summer because the cost of the project rose out of Jacobsen's range, increasing from $1 million to $1.5 million, Greg Jacobsen told the News-Tribune in October 2008.

At that time, Jacobsen said the company would stay in Ballard for the foreseeable future, and had no plans for other possible locations. Greg Jacobsen said the estate of Bob Jacobson, former owner of Jacobsen's Marine, is being settled and no one knows what will happen to the land. He said he still believes the company could have gotten a few more years out of the Ballard location, but it would not have been at a reasonable overhead.

In Ballard, Jacobsen's Marine operates out of three separate buildings in a location that is far from I-5 and a boat ramp. The new location is a single, 9,000 square feet facility, which will lower operating costs, and is closer to both the freeway and boat ramps.

In 2006, a company survey showed that very few of its customers lived in Ballard. The Ballard location was not as important as it was 20 to 30 years ago, Jacobsen said.

Jacobsen's specializes in saltwater sport fishing boats, ranging from 18 to 36 feet.

Michael Harthorne can be reached at 783-1244 or michaelh@robinsonnews.com.