Grant County ports gearing up for growth

MOSES LAKE — Grant County ports are gearing up for increased business and industry across the region with no shortage of industrial land to develop but with a focus primarily on expanding rail access, utilities and other infrastructure to support development.

“There's a core excitement in this region for growth,” Port of Ephrata Executive Director David Lanman said. “I think it's just a matter of getting everybody together going in the same direction. There's a significant opportunity in this area.”

Port of Moses Lake Director of Business Development Richard Hanover explained some of the factors the port looks at for expansion and drawing in new business.

“You have to look at what are some of your strengths, and for us land is cheap, it's fairly affordable over here. There's lots of land,” Hanover said. “The other thing is power. Low-cost power is essential for recruiting a lot of these industries. Water is another important asset. And then there's just key functions that you need to have in place like an industrial wastewater system.”

Hanover said Moses Lake is considered one of the larger ports in the county and is seeing a lot of new industries move into the region simultaneously, alongside the major players already in the port district.

“You get REC (Silicon) back up and going,” Hanover said. “I recruited in Twelve, which is a sustainable aviation fuel company. Group14’s here, Sila Nanotechnologies is here, OneD’s getting up and going … and Stoke Space Technologies is continuing to expand and grow.”

The port owns the Grant County International Airport, a significant factor in bringing in aviation business.

“Boeing is now the largest employer in Grant County,” Hanover said. “By the end of the year, they'll be close to about a thousand employees. And then we have the AeroTEC Flight Test (Center), Greenpoint Technologies, Genie Industries, Moses Lake Industries, Chemi-Con, Joyson, and then all the other industries that we have and they're all expanding and growing. So we're in a really good location, I think, for diversity within our industry.”

Hanover said there are challenges such as solidifying infrastructure for the port district and the city of Moses Lake, but that isn’t stopping growth in Grant County from being a great economic opportunity for the port.

“We can pick and choose what we want and what’s best for our community,” Hanover said. “We don’t have to necessarily always go after those big opportunities. Now, we're actually looking at potentially creating an industrial incubator space for startup companies and being able to grow our own. We don’t know when that future is going to happen.”

Moses Lake may have a large port district, but Hanover said the Port of Quincy beats Moses Lake with regard to revenue and finances, and that each port has its own strengths.

Patrick Boss, a consultant for the Port of Warden and the Port of Quincy, explained the Warden industry hub’s focus for new business.

“We really are kind of becoming a very attractive site for food processors,” Boss said. “I think that's Warden’s strength — agricultural and food, and manufacturing and processing. If you look at what we’ve got here right now, Viterra’s here … Viterra’s the biggest canola-crushing facility west of the Rockies.”

Boss also mentioned Lamb Weston, Oregon Potato Company, Washington Potato Company and many other food processing or agricultural companies in Warden.

Pat Millard, the Port of Warden’s executive director, said Warden is also soon expanding its rail access, which she said will make the port more attractive to businesses.

Boss also elaborated on the Port of Quincy’s focus. Data centers have been a key aspect of the city’s development, he said, which has been rapid in the last few years.

“Each town has its strengths and weaknesses and Quincy has just a massive amount of electrical infrastructure and a massive amount of fiber optics,” Boss said.

That electrical and fiber optic foundation is what makes Quincy appealing for data centers, Boss said.

The county may be in a good position for ports to attract business and growth, but Boss said the county’s infrastructure, especially roads, will also need to grow and improve along with it.

Lanman said the Port of Ephrata plans on attracting new business in several ways, such as adding a new 20,000-gallon Jet A fuel tank.

“Jet A is really the key to future growth for this airport because if you serve all aircraft, especially the larger ones, it's going to provide an incentive for businesses to expand here,” Lanman said. “We're certainly in a growth mode right now.”

The port also plans to expand its rail warehouse facility into an intermodal freight facility integrated with the airport, Lanman said, which would provide a substantial revenue source.

“I've been working with Grant County PUD and also the city of Ephrata water utilities in expanding the access to power, water and sewer in this area, and within the next six to eight months there's going to be an expansion of utilities that are going to open up the whole complete southeast portion of the port that otherwise did not have utilities,” Lanman said. “By opening that up, it's going to give us a significant opportunity to develop that land because it's going to be in a perfect position. It borders the southern portion of our southernmost runway, and then extends out and borders State Route 282. So that makes a perfect area for industrial development and business airpark development.”

Port of Royal Slope Director Bonnie Valentine echoed similar expansion plans and concerns of straining infrastructure as the other ports in Grant County.

“Grant County PUD is installing a new substation — it's called the Red Rock Substation — here in our port,” Valentine said. “I won't say we're at maximum power now, but I think it is limited … I think that in order to grow, that was something that we needed, is this new substation, so that's kind of exciting.”

Valentine said that the Port of Royal Slope has also expanded its rail access using grant funding in order to attract business.

Freight and transportation access and power supply are important to a Grant County port’s ability to attract business, something many of the ports are aware of and hope to expand on.

“I think one of the beauties of Grant County is that all our port districts work really well together,” Hanover said. “When there's an opportunity that doesn't necessarily look like it fits (in Moses Lake), the first thing we do is we look for an opportunity for them to fit in another port district. The Grant County Economic Development Council, a lot of the leads come to them from the state and it goes out to all of the different port districts. Sometimes those direct inquiries that come into us here at the Port of Moses Lake or the Port of Quincy, if it doesn't work there, we're looking for other places that we can site that within Grant County.”

Hanover said with the increased economic development in Grant County that all of the port districts succeed when one of them succeeds, just as a rising tide lifts all boats.

“I think (the network of ports) has served well … because it's given (communities) the opportunity to be in charge of their own destination, their own future,” he said. “I think (Grant County) is just a really good place to be. The future’s pretty bright with opportunities.”

Gabriel Davis may be reached via email at gdavis@columbiabasinherald.com.