Save the date! Construction to start on new Kennewick bridal boutique
Blueberry Bridal, the first business to stake a claim at Vista Field, breaks ground this month on its future home.
Owner Amber Keller and the Port of Kennewick plan a ceremony at 10 a.m., April 17, at the construction site, 625 Crosswind Blvd.
Keller was the first private business owner to express interest in Vista Field in 2023, when she offered to pay the port about $74,000 for a site at the heart of the former municipal airport.
Port officials eagerly accepted, saying her plan to move her upscale bridal was exactly what it hoped would happen as it converted the 103-acre airport into a destination for tens of millions of dollars in private investment in shops, restaurants, residences and other amenities.
“I hope we have other people join you in your passion for Vista Field,” Skip Novakovich, the commission’s chair, told Keller at the time.
The deal closed earlier this year and Keller made plans to finalize financing and permits. The 4,000-square-foot boutique should be completed this year.
Blueberry Bridal was quickly followed by other private businesses interested in transforming the windswept Vista Field into an urban village.
New restaurant and an eye clinic
Keller was the first to buy into the Vista Field vision, but not the first to physically dig into the site.
That honor rests with Isabelle Yuri Nah, who broke ground on Kuki Izakaya Japanese Restaurant in November after paying $95,000 for her site a few months earlier.
The 3,500-square-foot restaurant is being built atop the runway where U.S. Navy pilots practiced mock-aircraft carrier landings during World War II. It is expected to open this year.
Columbia Point Eyecare is the next private project ready to begin construction. In March, Drs. Brandon Furness and Royce Barney of Cantley Vision Inc. closed a deal for a site for the future clinic and secured building permits.
Additional deals are pending with Akula Group, a Vancouver developer that plans to build an $8 milllion, five-story building with residences and retail space, and with BlueChart Homes, a Western Washington partnership with plans to construct 300 homes at Vista Field.
The port and BlueChart hammered out terms in March in what promises to be the biggest deal in the 110-year history of the local port.
Port officials are negotiating additional deals that have not yet been brought to the commission for approval. Their status remains confidential.
Vista Field history
The port closed Vista Field to air traffic at the end of 2013, citing lack of federal funds and low traffic.
The vision of an urban village emerged from a series of community gatherings. It invested about $5 million to build roads, sidewalks, street lights and a water feature with fountains to anchor the first phase.
The first phase was dedicated in 2022 and the port put 21 parcels on 20 acres in the middle of the property up for sale.
As it waited for the private sector to step up, the port itself renovated two former airplane hangars into a public plaza it calls Vista Field’s “Southern Gateway.” Benton County underwrote the $2.1 million project through its Rural Capital Fund.
For more information to vistafield.com