‘Road to the future.’ Deals top $8.6B for this remote Eastern WA clean energy park
An unassuming patch of land near a bend in the Columbia River is emerging as Washington’s hottest destination for clean energy and clean manufacturing.
Wallula Gap Business Park is a 1,400-acre park zoned for heavy industry in western Walla Walla County, created by the Walla Walla port to attract industrial manufacturing.
Today, it has four development deals pending.
There’s no guarantee they will all be built but collectively represent a total investment of $8.6 billion and about 2,000 new jobs.
The projects include a data center campus, a building insulation plant, a battery manufacturing plant and a sustainable aviation fuel plant.
The Wallula area already is known for industrial activity.
Packaging Corporation of America, Tyson Foods, Northwest Wine Services and Tri-Cities Intermodal all operate in the area, which is about 10 miles southeast of Pasco along Highway 12. The site is about 10 miles north of the Oregon border.
Wallula Gap may seem like an out-of-the-way spot, but it has what industrial developers need most — large sites for large production plants, access to transportation and a landowner eager to make deals.
There are only three places in Washington state where developers can buy 50 or more acres for industrial development, according to Choose Washington, a business recruitment tool created by the state’s Department of Commerce.
Wallula Gap and its neighbor, Dodd Road Industrial Park, are two of the sites.
Richland’s Horn Rapids Industrial Park is the third.
Not shown is the Northwest Advanced Clean Energy Park in Richland. The former Department of Energy property is being “very actively” marketed, said Mandy Wallner, Richland’s economic development manager.
Wallner said officials pitched Richland properties to several companies that ultimately chose Wallula Gap.
“We are happy they found a home in our state if not our community,” she said.
Proximity to Tri-Cities
State economic development officials say Wallula Gap is flourishing because of its location and because the Walla Walla port is focused on business recruitment and working to ensure the business park is ready for developers.
“(I)ts proximity to the Tri-Cities workforce contributes to its appeal. Years of strategic investments in studies and infrastructure are truly paying off. The port, as the site owner, has shown strong leadership,” Radi Simeonova, director of business, recruitment, retention and expansion, told the Tri-City Herald.
A state grant helped the port pay for preliminary work to ready Wallula Gap Business Park for future development. The work included surveys, subdividing the property designing plans and completing reports to support future development applications.
It recently paved a stretch of East Attalia Road to serve the project.
Patrick Reay, the port’s executive director, said Attalia may look like a road to nowhere, but it’s really a “road to the future.”
Aviation fuel
SkyNRG America Inc., a Dutch company that manufactures sustainable aviation fuel, is the latest manufacturer to make a deal for land in the Wallula Gap park.
This week, the port agreed to sell the company 165 acres for about $10.8 million.
SkyNRG initially planned to build a plant on a separate site, but after two years of research, concluded Wallula Gap better serves its development and operations objectives.
The port commission agreed to the switch at its Nov. 14 business meeting.
The deal gives SkyNRG until late 2028 to complete due diligence and begin construction. The company says it’s a $1 billion project.
If built, its neighbors will include a data center complex worth nearly $5 billion, a battery manufacturing plant worth $2.5 billion, and building insulation manufacturing plant worth $300 million.
SkyNRG, which could not be reached this week by the Herald, produces sustainable aviation fuel for airlines under mandates to reduce carbon emissions.
SkyNRG calls its Walla Walla project Project Wigeon.
The project will produce 50 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel annually. Renewable natural gas is the main feedstock. Construction will support 600 jobs and the plant itself will employ 100 when production begins in 2029, it said.
Data centers
If built, SkyNRG’s neighbors will be Advance Phase LLC, Rockwool and an unnamed battery manufacturer, according to a development map.
Advance Phase is the alias for a company the port described as being a U.S.-based tech company in the top 30 of the Fortune 500. There is no company registered under that name in the corporations database maintained by the Washington Secretary of State’s office.
The port agreed to sell 500 acres to Advance Phase for a $4.8 billion complex of 16 data centers in October.
The Tri-City Herald reached out to several major tech companies to inquire if they were connected to Advance Phase. Just one, Google parent Alphabet Inc., responded to deny it is connected to the data center project. No others have stepped forward to either confirm or deny their involvement.
If built, Advance Phase will employ 320 and will support about 400 additional jobs. The project alone would expand Walla Walla County’s $10 billion property tax base by nearly 50%.
Molten rock, batteries
Rockwool, aka Roxul USA Inc., is pursuing review of plans for a 2.7-million-square-foot plant at Wallula Gap Business Park, where it is buying 250 acres from the port for $8.75 million.
The project will be its fifth North American facility and will serve as a launch pad for its West Coast expansion.
If built, Rockwool will employ 125 and will produce sustainable building insulation by spinning molten rock in a process that resembles making cotton candy.
The final project is an unidentified battery manufacturer referred to as Project Energy Force. It has a deal for 100 acres and would build a $2.5 billion facility that would employ 1,500.
In 2021, Washington lawmakers set a goal of doubling manufacturing jobs in the state by 2031. Sen. Matt Boehnke, R-Kennewick. sponsored the bill as a state representative.
There are nearly 8,000 manufacturers in Washington who collectively generated $63 billion in economic activity in 2021, according to the Association of Washington Business. The industry employed 271,000 or nearly 8% of the state’s total workforce.
Average compensation was $93,000, according to AWB.
This story was originally published November 15, 2024 at 5:00 AM with the headline "‘Road to the future.’ Deals top $8.6B for this remote Eastern WA clean energy park."