New residential/commercial project on the Mattawa horizon

MATTAWA — The Port of Mattawa and local developer Brian Talbot, owner of Sonrise Orchards, have finally reached an agreement on the sale and purchase of a 13-acre parcel of land off 24 Road SW and Pat-Chee for the development of commercial business and residential housing.

The going price: In the neighborhood of $344,000.

“We are happy with the deal. The residential project will definitely be a big benefit to Mattawa as the largest social-economical downfall in south Grant County is the lack of housing,” Lars Leland, assistant Port manager, said. “The Port will be selling commercial property in the vicinity — for some future mom and pop shops — to help support Brian’s residential development.”

Talbot was happy the deal finally went through as well.

“As I’m entering into the development industry, I’m surprised how many hurdles you have to jump through to get through the process,” Talbot said. “Each time I think I have a timeline as to how things are going to go — I’ve had to throw it out and start over. But I am excited we finally closed the deal and I have the property in hand.”

The next step in in the process for Talbot is annexation into the city of Mattawa.

“I want to get that done quickly — want to be a part of the town — paying taxes and all that,” He said. “After I build the roads — put in the streetlights, storm sewer, etc., I’m going to dedicate it all back to the city then it becomes their responsibility to maintain.”

Talbot said he wants this to be a first-class operation.

“I want to give the city something that looks better than what it has been given in the past,” he said. “There’s been a lot of strain between developers and the town — a lot of stuff was half-done — not quite finished — no paved streets — no sidewalks — the sort of things that really upgrade a town.”

Talbot’s initial stage of his residential development is to construct a 12-unit-three story apartment complex. He hopes to break ground on the project sometime in November and wants to use as much local labor as possible.

“The first thing I’ll do is build my shop and storage facility. In March I hope to have some apartments started and ready for harvest of next year,” he said. “I do plan to use as much local labor as possible to build out the project — really want this to be a job creation situation for Mattawa.”

Talbot also has plans to construct a minimum of 20 duplexes and 20 single family dwelling homes, but they will come along a bit longer down the road.

He is doing his part to help provide for the lack of housing in the area, but his, Talbot, said, isn’t the only project needed in Mattawa.

“It would be nice if someone else bit the bullet and did similar (housing) projects — we need at least three like mine in the next five years.”

The Washington Growers League is one entity that is planning to help elevate the housing shortage, but their project is aimed solely at the temporary labor market

“They recently purchased 5 acres from Mike Taylor just east of Brian’s property,” Leland said. “They just completed a quarter-mile of infrastructure…the road looked very nice — it was recently paved — the curbs, gutters and sidewalks and fire hydrants are all in as well — looks beautiful.

Mike Gempler with the WGL said they are hoping to break ground by the end of the week on a 306 unit housing project. Phase one will see 144 dwellingas erected.

“They are putting in H-2A housing — but the more they put in the more year-round housing is needed — You can’t separate the two,” Talbot said. “We (orchard owners) could kind of do H-2A housing in the winter — use them for tractor drivers and equipment operators — maybe some orchards are using 75 percent H-2A and 25 percent permanent, but a 50-50 balance would work better — half of the people would live here and half would be H-2A and then you have a nice balanced crew.

But Talbot said he for one, doesn’t want to build H-2A houses.

“I want to put up year-round housing and stay away from government housing or at least avoid it for as long as I can,” he said. “I guess that’s the Brian Talbot solution to the immigration problem — put up permanent housing and stay away from government programs as much as possible.”

As for the mom and pop shops and truck stop Leland mentioned — Talbot said the commercial development will have to take a back seat to the housing project for the forceable future.

“I’d love to put in a gas station to fill up my semis — in the middle of the harvest last year Pacific Pride was shut down, so I had to send my trucks to George for fuel to drive my fruit to Wenatchee,” he said. “I would also love to build a mini-market and a motel/motor inn to provide services we don’t have here in Mattawa — but that’s at least another five years down the road — it’s going to take four years to put in all the housing.”

Talbot does have other irons in the fires as well like developing the property for the proposed Mattawa Community Center.

“I’m trying to do a good thing in Mattawa with regard to the community center,” he said. “But I’m going to need help along the way putting in the soccer field — hoping to get some volunteer labor to finish it off — and when I start work on the community center itself-it will be absolutely worthless if we don’t get volunteer help to build programs and run it — without after school programs — what do you have? — An empty building.