The Port of Port Townsend advanced its plans for a 23-acre industrial park near the Jefferson County International Airport at the Sept. 11, commissioners meeting.

During the meeting, the port’s board of commissioners approved the purchase of a 3.4-acre parcel of land as well as the matching funds needed to apply for an infrastructure grant, a move Port of Port Townsend Executive Director Eron Berg said would bring the project nearly ready for development.

With the commissioners’ approval Berg said, “We’ll have acquired and developed all the access, all the utilities to the site and about 90 percent of the plans and permits for the 24 acres.”

“You can taste it,” Berg continued. “We’ll be able to drive to the site and see everything laid out. Our ability to compete for the next dollars will be massively enhance by this project.”

Berg described the property acquisition and infrastructure project as key to the industrial park’s development and as a vital partnership between the port and the PUD.

“The project that we’re imagining is a $2.3 million project,” Berg said. “What this project would do is acquire the parcel. It would actually build about 500 feet of road from Four Corners (road) through the 24-acre site and ensure we’ve got the electricity and water to the end of the road, to our site, to have it ready to go. The project and partnership with the PUD includes about $1.1 million in electrical infrastructure. That puts redundant power to our property and also provides a new main feeder from their Four Corners substation through the port’s property to Kala Point.”

Berg said the electrical infrastructure improvements would benefit not just the airport and industrial park, but the surrounding area.

The property cost $250,000, which the port paid for with Industrial Development District funds. The commissioners also approved applying for a $600,000 public infrastructure fund grant. That application includes a $400,000 match. Part of those matching funds would be used to build the road to connect the newly-acquired parcel to Four Corners Road.

According to Berg, the PUD would ultimately spend about $1.1 million — $925,000 of their own dollars. with the port reimbursing them $175,000. The port, for its portion, Berg said, would spend $1.2 million — $775,000 in infrastructure development grant funding and $425,000 public infrastructure grant funds.

“From an industrial development standpoint, we will have adequate power and water for anything we could want to locate there,” Berg said. “Whether it’s a foundry, cold storage facility, fill in the blank, that would all be ready.”

Design of the industrial park is already underway, and access to Four Corners Road was critical to the port’s plans for the site as an economic hub and job generator, he added.

“There are people in our community right now who need that space for their businesses to grow,” Commissioner Pam Petranek said.

“It’s a lot of money for the port,” Berg continued. The acquisition of the parcel and installation of the infrastructure will allow “us then to seek funding for a phase, or multiple phases, of the 24 acres.”

According to the port’s Comprehensive Scheme of Harbor Improvements plan, a light industrial park at the airport is years in the making.

The Port acquired the property in 2002 after identifying the need for more industrial land to further its economic development and job creation missions. At the time of acquisition, the property was zoned Rural Residential under Jefferson County’s land use code.

In 2009, the port applied for, and Jefferson County approved, a change in land use designation and zoning for the property to allow for light industrial use.

According to the Port’s long-range plan, full build-out would cost an estimated $5.92 million in 2030 dollars.