R.E. Powell, a distributor of fuels and lubricants, has expanded its presence in the Tri-Cities by buying a three-story office building in Richland.

In late April 2017, the company bought a 46,800-square-foot building for $4.45 million at 1060 Jadwin Ave. The Grandview-based company had been leasing the building since fall 2016 after outgrowing its facility at 151 Commercial Ave. in Pasco.

“We’ve been expanding the office space over there to accommodate our Tri-Cities team members, but we realized we’d need to invest in office space to meet those needs,” said Tony Christensen, who joined the business in 2001 and now serves as president and chief operating officer. “We have 40 team members in Grandview, and about 10 who were working out of the Pasco office. We’ve moved some of those people out of Pasco and some of our team members in Grandview have relocated to Jadwin. Today we have about 20 team members working out of the Jadwin office.”

Christensen Inc. is the parent company of several businesses focused primarily on the distribution of fuel, lubricants and propane, including R.E. Powell Distributing, SeaPort Petroleum in Seattle and Don Thomas Petroleum in Portland. The company also owns Mid Valley Chrysler Dodge Jeep and Ram in Grandview.

Tony Christensen,

R.E. Powell is the largest distributor of Chevron fuels in the Northwest and the largest distributor of Shell lubricant, supplying businesses all over Washington, northern and eastern Oregon, and the Idaho panhandle. Along with providing a vast number of convenience stores with fuel, the company supplies farms and transportation companies.

In 2012 the Puget Sound Business Journal named R.E. Powell one of the Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies in Washington (ranked by percentage of revenue growth from 2009 to 2011). Its 2009 revenue reached $305 million, and two years later the company reported $507 million—a 66 percent growth. And in 2014, the company was named the 12th largest privately held company in the state.

“We’ve been having consistent double-digit growth on an annual basis,” said Christensen, who noted that the investment in Richland property is reflective of that spike. “We felt it was a good investment to make for the company. We wanted to have the flexibility to have space to grow.”

The Grandview location at 501 E. Wine Country Road houses the company’s distribution facility and logistics teams, which include truck scheduling and dispatching. Over the years, R.E. Powell has had to add a modular building as the number of employees and clients expanded, and it has had to utilize office space at the company’s car dealership.

“With the Jadwin building, we’ll be able to move some of those teams that were scattered around Grandview to one facility. The Grandview location will continue to operate as a warehouse facility, and some of our admin will operate out of there for the foreseeable future,” he said.

The Jadwin building is three stories with a basement, offering plenty of room. R.E. Powell is located on the first floor of the building, and they have a team set up in some offices on the second floor—but those locations are temporary while MH Construction, based out of Kennewick, builds out the third floor.

The man who helped to design the building, Jim Dillman, 80, of Richland, said it was the “finest building in the city.”

“It had fine interior finishes and a very nice plan. It’s also brick and that was important because that’s longevity. It’s not weird either. If you go down Clearwater, there’s so many weird buildings. Then it becomes chaotic. The world we live in has a lot of difficulties. What we need are things that are calmer and pleasant. We don’t need chaos. All the details in that building were meant to be top drawer,” he said.

Dillman, who retired at age 75, also helped to design the Allied Arts Association’s Gallery at the Park in Richland and the Tri-Cities Cancer Center in Kennewick. He retired five years ago.

R.E. Powell is not the only tenant in the building. About half of the space is being utilized by existing tenants. Community First Bank leases space, said Christensen, and Kadlec has a clinic and administrative offices in the building and there’s an Edward Jones office there too.

“There is some space for us to grow, so those tenants can stay and we can grow. If we shrink, we have the flexibility to lease out space as well,” he said.

Christensen said the company likes the central location the building offers to its Northwest clients, and that there’s a talented pool of individuals in the area.

“Overall, it’s a growing, vibrant community. Over time, we feel our staffing needs are going to continue to grow in the Tri-Cities market,” he said, adding that as the company moves forward, R.E. Powell will continue to create a diversified environment with a focus on women and minorities. “As we’ve grown, we’ve brought in a lot of team members from a lot of backgrounds and people from different parts of the country. We want a diversified organization so that we’ve got different viewpoints. We focus on building great teams.”