LONGVIEW — A Woodland-based concrete company has agreed to buy about 6 acres of property from the Port of Woodland to expand its production facility and add 35 jobs to the business, according to port and company officials.
The $1.5 million land deal between the port and Columbia Precast Products means the business can increase its production by 50 percent, according to the firm.
The deal also made the port eligible to ask for additional state funding as part of a recent grant and loan request, said Jennifer Wray-Keene, the port’s executive director.
Columbia Precast creates precast manholes, catch basins, boxes and vaults. The facility opened in Woodland in 2015 and currently employs between 40 and 65 workers, depending on the season, said General Manager Ron Sparks.
Sparks said the land will be used as a storage yard. There are no plans to further develop the property, he said.
“We were seeking additional yard space because we have been really growing at a steady rate for the last five years,” Sparks said.
With the new yard space, Columbia Precast can increase production and add two new product lines, he said.
“We are already in the process of that. We are producing some noise walls (for a State Department of Transportation project), and some panels for the Sound Transit project up in Seattle,” Sparks said.
The purchase is the first at the port’s new Centennial Industrial Park, a nearly 16-acre site located near Guild and Robinson roads. Columbia Precast will own two of eight lots at the industrial park.
That industrial park is one of two sites the port is developing for lease or sale, Wray-Keene said. Earlier this year the port applied for a $3.6 million state Community Economic Revitalization Board grant and loan package to bring utility lines to the properties. Port officials expect a decision on the application on Nov. 21.
Columbia Precast agreed to buy the land with the expectation that the port will improve the property with utility lines. That “contingency agreement” shows a secure source for future economic development at the site, making the port eligible for more state funding, Wray-Keene said. The port would have been eligible for only about $2 million in state funding without Columbia Precast’s commitment to buy the land, she said.
Sparks said his company was eyeing the land, which abuts the existing concrete facility, for at least two years. However, the port couldn’t sell the land under its previous business plan, Wray-Keene said.
“To actually make this deal work, we had to change our business plan,” she said.
Port commissioners adopted a new business plan earlier this year allowing businesses to purchase or lease-to-buy property in the port’s industrial parks. The port does not have plans to sell riverfront property, Wray-Keene said, and it requires a company to create at least five jobs per acre sold before it will agree to sell any land.
Port officials touted the change as an example of how the agency is trying to create family-wage jobs, as well as “sustain and retain the businesses already established in our community.”
“We had seen this company was dedicated to Woodland. … They have been wonderful neighbors and really growing, so it was the right move for the port to do this,” Wray-Keene said. “And this has led to other companies getting more interested.”
She said companies from Washington, Oregon and California have shown interest in purchasing or leasing the remaining lots in the park.
Wray-Keene said with Precast and another deal pending, the port is getting more interest. “And that’s a good thing for Woodland,” she said.
