The Port is currently seeking development partners for this project. Contact Randy Mueller, Director of Business Development. Contact Info

Millers’ Landing Mixed Use Development

Ridgefield Waterfront
Brownfield Clean Up & Revitalization

Like many regions in the Pacific Northwest, Ridgefield was very dependent on a timber-based economy. When Pacific Wood Treating Company (PWT) went bankrupt in 1993, Ridgefield lost 250 timber related jobs, a major blow to workers and their families and the end of an era.

After 30 years of operation, PWT left Lake River Industrial Park severely contaminated with wood treating chemicals: pentachlorophenol, creosote and copper-chromium-arsenate.

The cleanup which began in 1995 is still underway, but rapidly nearing final phase. Steaming (click here for details) and pumping of the underground contaminates has been completed and the system is being decommissioned. Several acres of the site have been cleared of structures and remediated by laying down a protective barrier which is then covered with several feet of clean fill. Beginning in 2012, more structures on the site will be dismantled followed by the protective barrier, clean fill process. Washington State Department of Ecology (WDOE) has regulatory control of the site and as such, they oversee all cleanup activity.

The Port is working toward redevelopment of the site into a vibrant waterfront area for Ridgefield and the surrounding communities. Redevelopment will be conducted in 7 stages over several years. The end goal is to create a mixed use development to include public green spaces, office space, light industrial, moorage, and retail as well as many public amenities. Additionally, Washington State University has been working with the Port and the Confluence Project towards their goal of creating an Environmental Science research and development facility at this site. Entrepreneurs and pioneers of science and technology will be recruited to fill the buildings at Millers' Landing, new products and new processes will be discovered and offered to the market; new business and new jobs will be created sustaining continued economic growth.
When the last phase, phase 7 is completed, the Port’s Millers’ Landing waterfront development project will:

Provide over 3,000 direct new family-wage jobs
Stabilize and diversify the local economy
Increase the local tax base
Increase recreational access to Lake River

Continued remediation of the site provides many full time management and technical positions as well as stimulating a broader economic base through the use of consultants, engineers, sub-contractors and local suppliers. As the cleanup progresses, quality jobs will be created as infrastructure is put into place and buildings erected; architects, engineers, utility workers, plumbers, electricians, landscape designers, masons, painters and communications specialists…hundreds of quality jobs stimulating the economy long before the first business tenant even calls Millers’ Landing “home”.

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