Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business • December 2019
December 2019
Volume 18 • Issue 12
Port chooses new director after rocky transition BY WENDY CULVERWELL editor@tcjournal.biz
Energy
Richland company to open $20M facility Page 13
Year in Review
A roundup of the Tri-Cities’ economic wins Page 27
Real Estate
J. Bookwalter Winery plans $4M expansion Page 49
NOTEWORTHY “We’ve had a good year. I think it can always be better, but it was a good year.”
-Carl Adrian, TRIDEC’s executive president and CEO Page 27
Diahann Howard has been named the Port of Benton’s permanent executive director. Howard, a longtime port employee, had been serving as interim executive director since May, when Scott Keller retired after more than 30 years with the port. Howard, one of four finalists for the top job, officially accepted the job offer from the port’s elected commissioners at their Dec. 11 meeting. Contract details, including salary, job description and termination procedures, were finalized in a closed-door session. The contract Diahann Howard will be signed at a Dec. 17 special meeting. Howard will be paid $155,000 annually. Howard said she looks forward to serving the port, which promotes economic development in western Benton County, including Richland, Prosser and Benton City. Her top priorities include staff training, catching up on pavement maintenance, roof work and executing the port’s strategic plan. She also is working to fill two key positions — airports director and facilities director, both vacated in the tumultuous months after Keller left. As executive director, Howard will manage day-to-day operations of the public port district, which has an annual budget of about $10 million. The port is supported by rent payments from tenants, uPORT DIRECTOR, Page 37
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Courtesy PGE PGE completed its Tucannon River Wind Farm project near Dayton in 2014. The 116 turbines produce an average of 101 megawatts, enough to serve 84,000 homes.
Say goodbye to coal in 2020 and hello to clean energy investments BY WENDY CULVERWELL editor@tcjournal.biz
The Northwest will take a giant step toward a future powered by cleaner energy in 2020 as four coal-burning plants go offline, including one 50 miles southwest of the TriCities. Portland General Electric will complete its 10-year plan to mothball its 600-megawatt coal plant at the Port of Morrow in Boardman. Two of four coal plants at Colstrip, Montana, will shut down by early 2020. And Canadian power giant TransAlta will shut down one of two coal-burning plants at Centralia, Washington. “We’re pretty thrilled with the way things are going,” said Sean O’Leary of the North-
west Energy Coalition, which joined the push to end reliance on coal-generated power more than a decade ago. O’Leary notes the shutdowns aren’t the economic catastrophe people imagined. The intervening decade has seen investments in wind, solar and high-efficiency gas projects designed to meet climate goals in both Washington and Oregon. “It’s a really powerful economic story,” he said. PGE’s move to stop burning coal in Boardman, accompanied by new investments in wind, solar and battery power, is of special interest to the Mid-Columbia. Tri-City economic development officials are counting on clean energy to help uCLEAN ENERGY, Page 9
Developers can reap tax benefits by investing in Opportunity Zones BY ROBIN WOJTANIK
for Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business
Time is running out for investors looking to capitalize on the first phase of incentives available to those wanting to develop or improve land in the Mid-Columbia’s three Opportunity Zones. “This is a great opportunity for local and regional investors to sell existing projects and reinvest their gains, while eligible, into quickly growing areas of Kennewick,” said Miles S. Thomas, economic development manager for the city of Kennewick. He’s helping spread the word on this relatively new tax benefit awarded by the governor’s office in the third quarter of 2018.
The Opportunity Zone program was created under new federal tax law that took effect in late 2017 but couldn’t be used until the Department of Commerce gave direction on it the following year. Even then, Thomas said, “No one knew how to use it. There was a long time before there was enough information out there about how to invest the capital gains.” Under the new guidelines, Gov. Jay Inslee designated three Opportunity Zones in the Tri-Cities – two in Kennewick and one in Pasco – to incentivize developers to reinvest money earned from capital gains into new projects in underserved or low-inuOPPORTUNITY ZONES, Page 4
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