New Tri-Cities retail, business complex finally under way near the airport

A $1.6 million business center is under construction near the Tri-Cities Airport in Pasco more than a year after it originally was scheduled to begin.

“A lot of it came down to COVID,” said co-owner John Hawley. “The price of the building doubled.”

Hawley, who owns Construction Services of Washington, is preparing to break ground on a two-story building at 3130 Varney Lane at the corner of Argent Road.

Hawley signed a 30-year lease with the Port of Pasco in late 2019 for roughly two acres of land for the project across from Columbia Basin College.

However, construction is just now beginning because the cost of materials and metal products soared, and there was too many delays in getting other supplies too.

“We aren’t a big company. I’m more conservative in risks,” he said.

But after paying on the lease he decided that he had to get moving on the project that he’s developing with partners Victoria and Ralph Lynch of Advanced Protections Solutions.

The two-building project called The Landing will be completed in two phases.

The first building will include five storefronts of flexible space that will be occupied by contractor-type businesses.

Hawley will move the office for his construction company to the building, which also will house Advanced Protection Solutions.

The remaining units will be available to lease when the first phase is complete late spring 2022.

The second building still is planned, but architectural drawings haven’t even been started, Hawley said.

Those six units will all be retail spaces.

Hawley will be working to attract restaurants and boutiques — the kind of businesses that still are recovering from the COVID pandemic. He hopes that by holding off he will have better success filling them quickly.

He believes construction will start on the retail portion next summer or early fall.

“CBC is a hug bonus — (students) have no where to walk to. As far as the restaurants that will go in, it will be an easy thing for students to be able to walk over there,” Hawley said.

He points out that the area has easy access to the highway, as well as being next to the Marriott Courtyard and directly next to the Tri-Cities Airport where passengers traveling through can grab a quick bite.

“I imagine a rooftop bar where people can drink beer, eat some food and watch airplanes go by,” he said.