Exclusive | New Tri-Cities warehouse park will rival size of Amazon project. Bring more jobs
Amazon’s new distribution warehouses aren’t even open yet and new neighbors already are in the works.
Seattle-based Tarragon is in the early stages of planning for more than 2 million square feet of warehouse space on South Road 40 East in Pasco, according to documents filed with Washington state.
The industrial park with four large warehouses and four smaller ones will go in across from Lake View Mobile Home Park, just south of Amazon’s massive new warehouses.
It will extend from Amazon’s Project Pearl on the west side of Road 40, down to the railroad tracks that run along East Crane Street to the intersection of Sacajawea Park Road, show documents filed under the State Environmental Protection Act (SEPA).
On the western end of the property they’ll build the two largest warehouses at 550,000 and 588,000 square feet.
Two 404,000-square-foot warehouses will take up the center of the property and four smaller 63,600-square-foot warehouses will go along Road 40 East.
The entire site is about 111 acres. In all, they’ll be creating a planned nearly 2.2 million square feet of warehouse space, according to the SEPA application.
The first phase of construction is expected to begin next spring, if permitting is approved. They estimate the warehouses, once complete, would employ between 750 and 1,450 people.
Tarragon could not be reached to comment on the project.
Jobs and traffic
Finding workers could be a struggle, as the warehouses will be competing with Amazon, a new Darigold plant, a new Reser’s Fine Foods plant and others in just the Pasco area. All are set to come online within the next year or two.
Employee traffic patterns are expected to follow largely the same pattern as the Amazon warehouses with about half of outgoing traffic heading north up Heritage Boulevard to Highway 12, using the Lewis Street and Pasco Kohlotus Road interchanges.
About 30 percent of the trucks and cars will move west down “A” Street toward Highway 397.
Ultimately the traffic flow will depend on what businesses use the warehouses, but the site offers easy access to railroad, the Big Pasco Industrial Park, and major highways.
The truck traffic is expected to almost all go north up Heritage to connect to Highway 12. About 10 percent is expected to go south on Highway 12 via Sacajawea Park Road.
In all, there will be 151 docking bays at the warehouses and more than 1,850 car parking spots. It will generate about 7,250 weekday trips for trucks and employee vehicles.
They’ll be joining Amazon is sharing costs for road improvements in the area to accommodate the increased traffic.
While some expected traffic patterns were included in the initial paperwork Tarragon filed with the state, a full traffic analysis will be required for a project of this magnitude.
Road improvements
To accommodate the increased traffic, Amazon proposed several changes to key intersections in their 2021 traffic study. Some of these improvements may need further alterations once Tarragon performs its own traffic study.
The goal is to minimize traffic impacts and the risk of crashes. It’s unclear if these proposals will need adjusting to accommodate the new industrial park.
While the truck traffic is expected to feed onto highways, the city also is looking into changes to ease traffic in town from commuting warehouse workers, Pasco City Engineer Dan Ford previously told the Tri-City Herald.
Traffic coming to the Amazon warehouses from the south will be almost exclusively employee cars.
That could include workers coming into Pasco from Burbank or commuters from Kennewick and Richland coming in through the Big Pasco Industrial area.
“A” Street
- At the right turn-only lane of southbound Highway 12 and “A” Street, Amazon will pay to add a 700-foot deceleration lane.
- They also will be widening the road at the intersection of “A” Street and South Road 40 E. and installing a traffic signal. That includes a 200-foot westbound left-turn lane.
Sacajawea and Highway 12
Sacajawea Park Road will primarily see traffic from employee vehicles.
“The problem with that crossing is that you come across the Snake River and and you’re climbing as you head north,” Ford said at the time. “As you pull out and try to accelerate it’s hard to judge because the vehicles are coming up that hill.”
- The intersection where Sacajawea and Tank Farm Road cross Highway 12 will likely be shifted to a southbound right-turn only, similar to the nearby intersection at A Street and Highway 12.
- As part of its 2021-26 transportation improvement program, the city of Pasco also plans to add bike and pedestrian pathways on the east side of the road running from the intersection of A Street and South Road 40 East down to Sacajawea Park Road and over to Highway 12. Between Amazon and the new warehouse park, the entirety of S. Road 40 East will see frontage improvements.
Future possible improvements
There are several areas that Amazon and the city of Pasco will be monitoring to determine if they need upgrades.
Some would be paid for by Amazon, and others may be a partnership between developers and the city as part of larger projects. Amazon will be conducting traffic surveys at key intersections after their warehouses open to determine if other improvements are warranted.
While construction is on track, the opening for the Amazon projects will likely be in spring, following a company wide pattern of delays at warehouses as retail sales slow.
Because Amazon will be opening around the time construction begins at the new Tarragon warehouse park, the results of these studies could impact planning.
Heritage Boulevard
- Heritage Boulevard is a designated truck route. It currently is not a signalized intersection. If traffic is impacted more severely than estimated, Amazon will pay to install a traffic signal at the intersection, said Ford. Amazon will be monitoring traffic levels at that intersection after their warehouses open.
“Right now it doesn’t (warrant the change) with the number of trips it has, but that will probably be one of the next ones to receive some consideration for improvement,” Ford said.
West Road 40
- Amazon also will be monitoring the intersection of Sacajawea and Road 40 to determine if any changes are needed.
While not a high traffic area, it is prone to delays when trains crossing west of Road 40 pause the flow of trucks trying to reach waterfront warehouses. It’s also the road to Sacajawea State Park.
Lewis Place
Ford also has proposed connecting East Lewis Place through to “A” Street. Currently East Lewis Place dead ends running parallel to Highway 12, just north of South Road 40.
He said that already there are trails in use there that could be turned into a paved road to create a full 4-way intersection. Doing so could relieve pressure on both Heritage Boulevard and “A” Street.
“Not to have that connection through is detrimental to everybody,” Ford said. “The opportunity to make that loop and connect it all the way down to the same intersection would be huge.”
The road currently ends in a driveway on either side that is used for a potato warehouse.
The “A” Street driveway is staggered just slightly across from the intersection with South Road 40 E.
Ford said he has met with land owners who have been amenable to the idea of connecting those roads. The major hurdle would be burying utilities that feed in from a utility district substation on the other side of Highway 12, he said.
This story was originally published August 19, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
