Our Voice: Project Sunrise will boost economy of the Mid-Columbia

Project Sunrise will be bringing some sunshine to our community’s economy in the months ahead.

The business behind the top-secret project’s code name was kept a remarkable secret for nearly a year by economic development officials.

Now we know the company planning to build a giant warehouse near King City is none other than a Fortune 500 auto parts retailer AutoZone.

The incentives used to woo the company here as it shopped location options have made big news but they’re really standard operating procedures in the battle to bring new business to town.

We’ve chastised our state’s economic development folks before for not being aggressive enough with their offers when trying to attract new businesses to our region, and we’re glad to see they played to win with AutoZone. The company will get $200,000 in cash and up to $2.6 million in tax breaks to build its 443,819-square-foot warehouse in Pasco.

While the project and process had been in the works for months, AutoZone’s identity as the owner remained unknown to the public until the company spent $3.6 million for the 93.4-acre site using its own name on the purchase.

Once it’s completed, the distribution center and truck maintenance yard will employ 200 people. The facility will service some of the company’s more than 5,100 retail stores in the United States. The company is expected to open 150 new stores per year as well as some regional “mega-hubs” like the one now planned for Pasco.

It was a team effort to lure the company here, with the Tri-City Economic Development Council leading the charge with an assist from the state Department of Commerce, who delivered the lead to TRIDEC. The city of Pasco is also doing its part with some infrastructure upgrades at the site.

AutoZone will benefit from our state’s sales tax remittance program, which is used to encourage industrial projects. Warehouses larger than 200,000 square feet are exempt from the state’s portion of sales tax on construction projects. With a price tag estimated at $40 million for the facility that equates to a $2.6 million savings. The company will submit receipts to the state for completed work and be reimbursed.

We’re impressed by the work done to bring AutoZone’s new warehouse here and at the caliber of businesses our community continues to attract for needs from call centers to large blocks of land for the likes of Project Sunrise.

We hope there are a bunch of other secret projects in the works. This is great news for our region and we will reap the benefits for years to come. A project like this will almost certainly attract the attention of other big companies looking to site similar facilities.

AutoZone is a major operation, ranking No. 307 on the Fortune 500 with an estimated $10 billion in annual revenue. We guarantee that others are watching and will keep the Tri-Cities in mind for future plans.

This story was originally published February 11, 2016 at 5:44 PM with the headline "Our Voice: Project Sunrise will boost economy of the Mid-Columbia."