Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2008

King Beverage to buy Fluor's Pasco building

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer

King Beverage, an Anheuser-Busch distributor, has agreed to buy Fluor's industrial building in the Pasco Processing Center.

It will use about one-third of the 103,500-square-foot building on Industrial Way, and the rest of the space will continue to be leased to FedEx Ground and the Galt Development Co., which owns Ashley Furniture and Sleep City USA.

Terms of the sale were not disclosed Tuesday, but the Franklin County Assessor's Office values the property at $3.7 million.

King Beverage is planning to invest $1 million in specialty equipment for the building, which will have 1,500 square feet of refrigerated warehouse space.

The building purchase is being financed through the Kennewick branch of the Bank of Whitman.

King Beverage has outgrown the space it now uses on Well House Loop in Richland and will be moving operations to the Pasco site, said Peter Rusnak, King Beverage vice president.

"It will allow us to grow our business and service more customers in Eastern Washington," he said.

The Spokane-based company also has distribution centers in Yakima, Chehalis and Lewiston, Idaho.

Fluor, a Hanford contractor, built the structure for $4.3 million in 2000 as a community project to encourage economic development, and later invested more money in improvements.

The building remained empty until FedEx leased space in spring 2006 and Galt leased space the next year.

But the building fulfilled its purpose in attracting business to the community, said Judy Connell, spokeswoman for Fluor Hanford. It was the centerpiece of a partnership with the Tri-City Development Council, the city of Pasco and the Port of Pasco and was intended to target key industrial sectors and recruit companies to take a "first look" at the Tri-Cities.

"It proved to be a favorable magnet for potential business recruitment and was influential in spurring development of jobs and wealth in the region," said Carl Adrian, TRIDEC president, in a statement. "Since 2005 alone, 16 firms have evaluated the facility. Each ultimately chose other locations in the area, but still created more than 1,000 jobs and invested more than $26 million in buildings and equipment in the area."

It has been an "outstanding asset for the economic development of the area," said Jim Toomey, executive director of the Port of Pasco.

Fluor Hanford's contract with the Department of Energy expires soon, but Fluor will continue to play a role in Hanford as a major subcontractor for central Hanford cleanup.