Located on nearly six acres adjacent to Clover Island and the Columbia River in historic downtown Kennewick, the Port of Kennewick and city of Kennewick created the Columbia Gardens Urban Wine and Artisan Village to transform a long-neglected waterfront into a pedestrian-friendly, regional waterfront gathering place.

The city built a paved, public trail alongside Duffy’s Pond, an urban watchable wildlife area, creating a scenic connection from the wine village to the Sacagawea Heritage Trail and Clover Island Riverwalk. The city also added new sidewalks, accent lighting, decorative streetlights, a transit bus stop pullout and landscaping to Columbia Drive, and a new wastewater system to provide winery waste-water treatment for up to 50,000 cases a year.

The port acquired the land, cleared the industrial buildings and built the first wine production and tasting room buildings at 421 E. Columbia Drive. They are now home to two boutique production wineries with tasting rooms and patios overlooking the waterfront: Bartholomew Winery, Building B, and Monarcha Winery, Building A140.

Bartholomew Winery opened Dec. 9 and Monarcha Winery is expected to open in March.

Multiple contractors were used (and they used many subcontractors) in different phases of the development. The city’s main contractors were POW Contracting of Pasco for the Duffy’s Pond path improvements; 2F Enterprises of Kennewick for the Columbia Drive streetscape work; and Shoemaker Excavation of Finley for the Columbia Gardens Pretreatment Plant.

Port of Kennewick contractors were Integrated Structures Inc./principal Gary Black out of California for pattern-language planning and initial architecture and engineering; Terence L. Thornhill Architect Inc. of Pasco and Meier Architecture Engineering of Kennewick for final architecture and engineering, construction-design and engineering for the first phase buildings; Strategic Construction Management of Pasco for phase one construction management; Big D’s Construction of Tri-Cities, Inc. for undergrounding utilities and site prep; and Banlin Construction of Kennewick for constructing the three buildings, parking and wall.

The port hired David Robison of Strategic Construction Management Inc. as its construction project manager.

In spring 2018, the port, city and Benton County will begin the second phase of construction, adding artwork, a bus shelter, more parking and shovel-ready parcels for additional private-sector development — including a winery tasting room, a food truck cluster and a public plaza overlooking the waterfront.

For information about leasing or general information, contact Amber Hanchette, the port’s director of real estate and operations at 509-586-1186.