Ribbon-cutting touts readiness for infrastructure

Movement expected soon from retailers eyeing North Gateway Center, Moses Lake

MOSES LAKE — The scissors were just about as gold as the ribbon they cut.

But each item looked bronze compared to the golden opportunity for growth that just opened up.

Wednesday morning, about 45 participants gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the official end of the construction of Loring Drive, Owen Road and Westover Drive north of Moses Lake off of Patton Boulevard. The overall project is referred to as the North Gateway Center.

The U.S. Department of Commerce- Economic Development Administration's $2.32 million matching grant project to bring in water, sewer, power, new roads and sidewalks has been completed. The matching grant, which was awarded to Grant County, the city of Moses Lake and the Grant County Economic Development Council, is intended to develop the area for commercial use, primarily big box stores and other retailers.

"These are now what we would call a pad-ready site, ready to build, everything in place, good to go," said Kim Foster, corporate counsel for the Aero-Space Port International (ASPI) Group. The ASPI Group's affiliates own the pads that will be sold to businesses.

While he did not name any of the major retailers that are looking at Moses Lake as a possible site location, Foster said that they are store names that people would probably recognize in any other town they go to.

"They are all here, or have been here recently and are doing their analysis on the market here," Foster said. "They are also working with one another to look at co-location opportunities. I think that you are going to see one or more of them make a move very shortly, as opposed to long-term. I think you're going to see something happen quite quickly."

Whether that movement happen on the North Gateway Center site or elsewhere, Foster said a project like the North Gateway Center generates enough interest that it piques the general interest of retailers.

"All the feedback that I'm getting is that they feel Moses Lake has a very compelling story to tell," Foster said. "We're definitely on the radar screen and approaching the target zone."

Foster noted that each big box retailer typically generates about $500,000 of sales tax revenue to the local community and each one will typically provide about 200 jobs.

"If you were to take a site like this that could accommodate, at a total build-out, five or six of those big box retailers, that would be up to $3 million a year in additional tax revenue to the local jurisdiction, and you could be talking about 1,000 new jobs," Foster noted, adding that that estimation doesn't take into account the restaurants, banks and other pad users that typically utilize space in the big box retailer parking lots.

"The real goal here, and the next thing we hope to see soon, is groundbreaking for private sector investment somewhere on this site," GCEDC Executive Director Terry Brewer told the ceremony audience Wednesday morning.

Over the course of the past two years, while working on the grant and seeing construction get under way, the GCEDC has touched base with and provided information to a number of large corporations with their eye on the community, he said.

"I know we're being examined, I know it's only a matter of time," Brewer said. "The way our economy is growing right now, it may be a short time until we do see a project announcement here. That's what we're looking forward to — something with real jobs providing additional income in our community, and growth in asset value, et cetera."