PORT TOWNSEND — The Port of Port Townsend is one of eight recipients of $2 million in state Department of Commerce Industrial Site Readiness Grant funding to support building and expanding industrial sites around the state in order to attract businesses, spur economic activity and create jobs in rural communities.
The port’s $200,000 award will be used for preliminary design work and engineering for the Jefferson County International Airport Light Industrial Park, said port Executive Director Eron Berg. It augments the $350,000 in Public Infrastructure Funds it received from Jefferson County and $100,000 in port funds that already were dedicated to the project.
“This grant is very, very helpful,” Berg said. “It will allow us to take the work further and do conceptual design work for a larger industrial area, something bigger than just the 24 acres that we’re working on already,” he said.
“We’re working with the county right now on some additional zoning updates that would allow us to use more of the port’s property industrially. We have a little more than 50 acres that we can use with the potential to add more in the future.”
Geotechnical work already has started at the site, which is located south of the runway and north of Four Corners Road.
“The idea is that we’ll have a project that’s ready to go out for us to seek funding and that would allow us to have pad-ready sites,” Berg said. “That way, somebody who wants to come out and create jobs can do that.”
The other Public Infrastructure Funds grant recipients were the city of Chehalis, Chehalis-Centralia Airport ($350,000); Port of Chehalis, Bishop Road Industrial Sites 1 and 2 ($250,000); city of the Dalles and Klickitat County, Columbia Gorge Regional Airport ($250,000); city of Richland and Port of Benton, Northwest Advanced Clean Energy Park ($200,000); Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, Old Okanogan Casino-Bingo Hall ($200,000); Port of Othello, Bruce Industrial Area ($350,000); and Port of Shelton, Johns Prairie Industrial Park ($200,000).
This was the second round of Industrial Site Readiness Grant funding. The Department of Commerce awarded $2.5 million to six projects in the first round in January 2023.
The grant program supports the 2021 Building Economic Strength Through Manufacturing Act passed by the Legislature in 2021 that aims for the state to create 300,000 new manufacturing jobs by 2030.
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Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached by email at paula.hunt@peninsuladailynews.com.
