PORT ANGELES — Westport LLC, which builds 164-foot luxury yachts at its Port Angeles shipyard, has purchased the old Walmart building in east Port Angeles.
The 130,000-square-foot building on 24 acres off U.S. Highway 101 was acquired to house Westport’s cabinet shop, engineering department and administrative staff, Westport General Manager David Hagiwara said in an interview with Peninsula Daily News waterfront columnist David Sellars.
Hagiwara did not reveal the purchase price. The building and acreage had been for sale for almost $3 million.
Needing more space, Westport plans to move its operations to the building, empty since 2010, from the Port of Port Angeles industrial park near the airport where it has built cabinets for its yachts for almost 15 years.
In a statement, Westport President Daryl Wakefield said:
“The Walmart building represents an opportunity for Westport to expand its cabinet operations and place the company in a good position to service the increased demands of not only our yacht business, but also that of the cabinets for our partner Edison Chouest Offshore.
“We want to recognize and thank the Port of Port Angeles for our long relationship and support it has given during our time at the port’s Airport Industrial Park.
“We were not dissatisfied with our previous location. The Walmart building allows us to meet our anticipated growth in the near future while continuing to invest in the Port Angeles community.”
Final design and alterations to the building will take time, Hagiwara told Sellars, adding that it will be several months before Westport will move into the new location.
Hagiwara said the company anticipates having as many as 150 employees in the former Walmart building.
It has 160 employees at its Port Angeles waterfront yacht plant and another 260 employees at its two other Washington state facilities in the Grays Harbor County towns of Westport and Hoquiam and in Fort Lauderdale, Fla,
It wasn’t clear how many employees Westport now has its Port of Port Angeles cabinet-making plant, or whether Westport planned to hire more employees for the new facility.
There was no announcement by the port about Westport’s move.
Asking price: $2.95 million
It had been speculated for months that Westport was going to purchase the Walmart building. But neither Westport nor Wal-Mart Stores Inc. would confirm the rumors.
Arkansas-based Wal-Mart had been trying to sell the building and land for $2.95 million.
The 24.3 acres of land and the building are valued at $3.8 million for 2015 taxes.
Sales tax generated from the cabinet manufacturing business would be split evenly between Clallam County and the city of Port Angeles because the building is located within the city’s urban growth area.
Founded in 1964 as Westport Shipyard Inc., Westport LLC has been a division of Edison Chouest LLC of Cut Off, La., since June 2014.
The company owns its 3-acre plant on Marine Drive across from Tumwater Truck Route in Port Angeles, where it builds its 164-foot tri-deck yachts, the largest in the Westport catalog.
The company builds yachts from 85 feet to 130 feet at other facilities.
Permit issued
In February, Clallam County Hearing Examiner Pro-Tem Lauren Erickson issued a conditional-use permit to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. that approved the building to house a wood cabinet manufacturing business that, according to the paperwork, would support up to 200 jobs.
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Delia Garcia said in an interview: “There is a potential sale. We don’t have a time frame.” She declined further comment.
The huge building at 3500 E. U.S. Highway 101 has been empty since the company opened the 181,000-square-foot Walmart Supercenter across the highway at 3471 E. Kolonels Way in October 2010.
According to the conditional-use permit, the wood cabinet manufacturing business would modify the interior of the old Walmart building and install a dust collector system and small storage building on the 24-acre parcel.
The dust collector would be about 300 feet from the Dollar Store and about 550 feet from the View Vista mobile home park.
“There is already a buffer between the mobile home park and the building,” Erickson wrote in her Feb. 2 decision.
“The primary issue will be noise, but noise levels are regulated by state law and can be mitigated to appropriate levels for residential areas,” she said.
State law requires that noise from the manufacturing business not exceed 57 decibels at residential developments and 60 decibels at commercial properties.
To meet the conditions of approval, the noise from the dust collector must stay within that range.
“If the sound levels are found to be too high, there is sufficient space around the dust collector to install additional sound mitigating techniques,” Erickson wrote.
No new outside lighting will be added.
Hours of manufacturing would be between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. with 200 employees working at full production, according to the permit.
In addition to the noise restrictions, Erickson said Wal-Mart must obtain a commercial building permit for the 46-foot-tall dust collector system and the storage building.
The storage building will stock solvents and other finish materials.
The conditional-use permit also noted that a state air quality permit was needed from the Olympic Region Clean Air Agency. It is not immediately known whether that permit and the commercial building permit have been acquired.
