The Port of Benton is gearing up for a multimillion-dollar building remodel that plays a key role in its intermodal facility – a place to connect and transfer goods from trains and trucks.

The project is part of the port’s efforts to improve infrastructure to support businesses, though construction won't start for another year.

The work will take place at 2579 Stevens Drive, a 90,000-square-foot building the port acquired in 1998 as part of a U.S. Department of Energy transfer. 

Although several rail lines run through the building, the planned improvements don’t deal directly with the rails. Instead, the focus is on updating the interior of the building so that it can house multiple tenants and addressing roofing issues, a project that totals $8.75 million.

The renovations are “important because that’s what readies the building to be more multi-tenant and more functional in the longer term, to support the intermodal users,” said Diahann Howard, the port’s executive director.

Timeline

The project is only in its beginning stages: the Port of Benton is applying for a $2.4 million loan from the Community Economic Revitalization Board, or CERB, and that’s only the first step in the process. 

The port won’t hear back about the loan until the first quarter of 2025. The loan will be for up to 20 years with an interest rate between 1% to 3%, Howard said, and the port can defer payments for up to three years. 

If approved, the loan will provide the port with matching funds for a grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration. The grant requires a 50% cost share from the port, and it is hoping to apply for at least $3 million, Howard said.

That leaves a gap of between $1 million and $1.8 million. The port likely will look to its partners to offset the difference, including from Benton County’s Rural County Capital Fund, which supports new capital infrastructure projects, funded by a state sales tax rebate of 0.09%. 

One of the reasons for the gap is because the port needs a 20% contingency, or part of the total project cost that is set aside to cover unexpected costs. That comes to about $1.7 million. 

“Usually you only have 10% of contingency, but we’ve doubled our contingency because prices of construction, prices of equipment and materials (have) gone up so high,” Howard said.

“We want to make sure that we’re able to deliver this project,” she said. 

If the loan process goes smoothly and the port is able to secure the federal grant, then the project will still need a contractor. At the earliest, building renovations would get started in 2026, Howard said. 

“There’s a whole lot of process that takes place before you’re able to actually move a shovel or move a wall,” she said. 

A loan is the first step toward remodeling work at the Port of Benton's building at 2579 Stevens Drive, which will help to better accommodate both new and existing tenants.

| Courtesy Port of Benton

Remodeling plans

The renovations will be focused on freshening up the 7,500-square-foot office portion of the building and making it more energy efficient, Howard said.

The building has been around since the 1950s, when it was a bus lot and train facility for the Hanford site, and there has been deferred maintenance from a previous tenant that needs to be resolved.

Aside from the office area, a women’s bathroom in the building also needs to be expanded, Howard said, because at the time the facility was built, the space was primarily used by men. Roofing needs to be addressed as well.

Availability to tenants is an important outcome of the project. “We need to open up some hallways and some restroom facilities so that we can lease out separate spaces to tenants, but still provide everybody common access,” Howard said, “and that will allow the port to more fully lease the bigger portion of the building to more intermodal users, and that’s the purpose of the project.”

While several tenants already occupy space in the facility, including Barnhart Crane and Rigging Co. and the port’s short line operator, Columbia Rail, the building was initially made for a single tenant.

The renovations will give the building room for more tenants, “so then we’ve got spaces for them to be, to start in, to grow in and ultimately, kind of grow out,” Howard said. 

“Ultimately, the goal here is to not only see Barnhart continue to expand and grow, but bring in other tenants that bring in other jobs at higher wage levels, which most intermodal rail-related jobs do, and provide those jobs, of course, to the community,” she said. 

Other intermodal plans

The planned building improvements at 2579 Stevens Drive are just one piece of the intermodal system the port is working to establish. 

“We will also, in parallel to all this, be trying to get the intermodal facility as part of the industrial land exchange with the city of Richland up and going, so that basically everything comes online and we’re able to support the growth, again, of existing companies and of new intermodal needs,” Howard said. 

A request for qualifications/proposals has been posted for an intermodal rail facility operator.