Port ready to match grant for business park

At the March 11th Port District1 meeting, Lower Columbia Economic Development Council Executive Director David Goodroe reported on the status of the port’s grant funding applications for development of a business park at a former industrial site along State Highway 4.

Last year the LCEDC, on behalf of Port 1, applied for a $1.2 million grant from the Economic Development Administration (EDA) and to the Community Economic Revitalization Board (CERB) for $225,000 as local matching funds to build the proposed park. The CERB grant was approved in July 2009 but will be awarded only to support a successful EDA grant. The review and approval process for the EDA application is still ongoing, said Goodroe, but he explained that a recent request for an engineering report on the proposed site could be taken as a positive sign for the approval process.

The port district will need to fund a $50,000 local match, and Goodroe asked that the commissioners prepare a letter of support stating that they were committed to supplying that money. The commissioners authorized port attorney Tim Hanigan to do so.

The current landowner of the proposed site, Hancock Forest Management, invited the port to participate in a joint appraisal of the site but the commissioners decided to conduct their own at a later time. The board also authorized Goodroe to continue negotiations with Hancock about the site.

Port Manager Jackie Lea had scheduled a meeting with an engineer this week to discuss the scope and cost of the required site engineering report and will bring the information to the next commissioners’ meeting.