Business park: Grant funds, yes, but site, no

Hancock Forest Management, Inc. has discontinued negotiations with Wahkiakum Port District 1 to sell a portion of Hancock’s log sorting yard along SR 4 to the port for redevelopment into a business park.

Lower Columbia Economic Development Council Executive Director David Goodroe said Hancock has leased the site to Western Woods, a business which uses the site to load logs into container trucks for export to South Korea. Goodroe said he was aware of three different log sorting yards in the area currently occupied by Western Woods.

Working on behalf of the port district, Goodroe successfully secured grant funding from the state Community Economic Revitalization Board and the federal Economic Development Administration (EDA) to plan and develop a business park.

Goodroe clarified the grant application was not site specific, and said that his contacts at the EDA had assured him they viewed the breakdown of negotiations with Hancock as “a bump in the road.” The port is still in the process for the EDA’s 2011 funding cycle, Goodroe said.

Port Manager Jackie Lea said she had seen the log sorting yard as a premium location for the business park due to the possibility of adding addition boat moorage along the adjoining slough, a feature hard to come by in available property.

Goodroe clarified several other 3-5 acre sites with convenient access to SR 4 were under consideration.