BREMERTON NATIONAL AIRPORT — The Port of Bremerton is planning to develop a 12.5-acre parcel of land next to Highway 3 in its Olympic View Industrial Park, including the construction of a 5,300-square-foot commercial building.

The port has filed permits with the city to develop the site, which is located west of Highway 3, between the highway and Imperial Way, CEO Jim Rothlin said. Work would include clearing trees and grading the parcel, utility work, and adding parking and access roads. Stormwater runoff from the site will flow to the port’s existing detention facility, according to a public notice advertising the project.

Usually, the port prefers to let private companies develop buildings on land it owns, but this was a unique situation, Rothlin said. A prospective tenant was interested in a location along Highway 3, and while the port has 11 development-ready sites in the industrial park, none of them have frontage access.

“The main reason we’re going with this is we may have an immediate need,” Rothlin said.

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Rothlin declined to provide information about the potential tenant but said if the company decides not to lease the building once it’s finished, the port will market it someone else. Construction is estimated to cost around $600,000.

The port decided to develop the entire parcel and construct the first building, with the hope that additional businesses will fill out the rest of the space in the future. A preliminary plan put together over the last year includes six additional buildings on the site, but that could change depending on the users.

“We decided, let's take the whole 13 acres, let's start developing the site and start putting a plan together that includes this building,” Rothlin said.

Permits for the project are pending, but the port hopes to get approval and open bids for the project this month and hire a contractor sometime in November. Due to the time of year and the weather, construction work will likely have to start in the spring, Rothlin said.

The port started work last month on a $2.2 million, 17,500-square-foot commercial building elsewhere in the park. Rothlin said the goal is to have a tenant sign a lease to move into that building by the time it’s completed in the spring.

Olympic View Industrial Park is located on 600-acres of port-owned land. The park is home to 63 tenants and about 2,300 jobs, including SAFE Boats International. The Port of Bremerton also owns the Bremerton and Port Orchard marinas and manages Bremerton National Airport.