At nearly 90 years old, one of Tacoma’s last major shipyards may be closing down for good next month.

J.M. Martinac Shipbuilding Corp. faces a foreclosure auction of its Thea Foss Waterway shipyard July 18 on the County City Building entry plaza unless it finds new business or an angel investor to pay some $415,000 in payments and fees overdue on a $5.4 million loan its owners signed in December 2012.

The shipyard also owes Pierce County some $13,429 in property taxes for the last three years.

The shipyard, which has constructed 256 vessels since its beginning in 1924, reportedly is searching desperately to find new construction work to fill its ways at 401 East 15th Street on the east side of the Foss Waterway.

The shipyard’s last project, a 184-foot state-of-the-art longline fishing vessel called the Northern Leader, left the shipyard a year ago. Martinac built that fishing vessel for Lynden’s Alaskan Leader Fisheries.

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