KENNEWICK — Connell Mayor Lee Barrow is celebrating news that Lamb Weston Holdings Inc. won’t tear down the french fry plant it closed in his small city in 2024.
The Eagle, Idaho, frozen potato giant listed it for $30 million on Feb. 12, a sharp departure from its original demolition plan.
The shift brings the possibility of a second act for the processing plant, long a key employer, taxpayer and utility customer in the Franklin County community of 4,950.
Barrow’s hopes once rested on a new operator coming in to restart the plant. The city even fielded half a dozen calls from would-be processors interested in the property, about 35 miles north of Pasco.
They were dashed in December, when Lamb Weston applied for demolition permits.
“I’ve had to say, ‘It’s not for sale and they’re going to demolish it,’” he said. “I don’t have to say that anymore.”
Lamb Weston employed 375 in Connell until it abruptly stopped processing potatoes there on Sept. 30. It repeatedly said it would demolish the 450,000-square-foot processing facility.
“We’re happy to see they’ve chosen to sell the property and not demolish it,” Barrow said.
State-of-the-art facility
Now that it’s for sale — as a “state of the art facility” — the city and its development partners have something to offer clients looking for industrial property in the region.
Barrow vowed to advise the organizations that showed interest that it’s available.
He’s less sure of the list price.
The $30 million price tag covers the plant itself, an active rail spur and an on-site water treatment system. It doesn’t cover the larger complex of storage sheds and 1,500-plus acres of farmland.
Lamb Weston listed the property via Colliers, an international commercial brokerage. Lance Bacon of Kiemle Hagood is serving as a local broker.
Bacon clarified that the offering consists of four distinct sites.
Site 1 includes the the plant, equipment, an active rail spur and an on-site water treatment system (processing capacity: 1.4 million gallons per day).
Sites 2, 3 and 4 refer to the property’s four sheds, a residence and 1,553 acres of farmland, including 964 that are irrigated. The farmland includes a 160 million gallon winter water storage pond.
Asking prices for the non-plant properties weren’t immediately available.
Major Eastern WA employer
Lamb Weston is one of the larger private companies in Eastern Washington, where it operates more than a dozen plants, offices and research facilities in the Mid-Columbia. Its local payroll was nearly 3,000.
The Connell shutdown followed a disappointing earnings report and was part of broader cuts across its North American operations.
Connell was selected for closure because it was one of the company’s older, least efficient facilities.
Randy Hayden, executive director of the Port of Pasco, said selling the processing facilities gives the port something to market to its clients. The port is responsible for economic development activity for much of Franklin County, including Connell.
Hayden said the public port can’t afford to buy the processing facilities, but the company’s farmland is another story. The Pasco port has attracted hundreds of millions of dollars of investment by creating development-ready industrial sites on former farmland.
A key example: Darigold Inc. is wrapping up its $600+ million dairy processing plant in Pasco at the port’s Reimann Industrial Center off Highway 395 now.
“We would certainly have an interest in buying land,” he told the port’s elected commissioners during a regular business meeting Wednesday.
