Editor’s note: This Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business feature, Tri-City Connections, is part of a series of occasional profiles of Tri-City natives and former Tri-Citians who have excelled in the world of business. If you have one in mind, let us know at [email protected] Toure shines on so many fronts...
Serial restaurateur Michael Miller knows a good dining spot when he sees one. Miller, founder of Stick+Stone Wood-Fired Pizza in Richland and Proof Gastropub in Kennewick, spied restaurant seats for sale outside the short-lived Dickey’s Barbecue Pit on Burden Boulevard in Pasco. The 5,000-sqare-foot restaurant itself was idle. Dickey’s opened in 2018 and closed in 2019 with its two peers after franchisee Dan Pelfrey ran into financial difficulties. Miller bought some...
The longtime head of economic development for the Port of Pasco has a new job. Gary BallewGary Ballew will join Greater Spokane Incorporated as vice president for economic development on Sept. 8. GSI represents 925 businesses in the Spokane area and serves to promote business and economic development. Ballew said it is comparable to his Pasco job, but on a...
Two high-profile intersections on Duportail Street in south Richland are getting makeovers as the city prepares to open its new Yakima River span to through-traffic this fall. Granite Construction Co. began a $1.3 million project to add turn lanes at the intersections with Queensgate Drive and Keene Road after winning the contract in July. Granite Construction, which is based in Watsonville, California, and specializes in infrastructure development, is using a vacant 11-acre site at Duportail and...
John Corbin is not happy.The Tri-City Chuck E. Cheese restaurant, a franchise he’s helmed for 38 years, closed in March when Washington Gov. Jay Inslee issued the Stay Home, Stay Healthy order to curtail the spread of coronavirus. Just 16 months earlier, he’d moved Chuck E. Cheese to a 14,000-square-foot state-of-the-art...
When Kennewick’s Trios Health was sold to a for-profit company in 2018, the managers of the Trios Foundation were left in a pickle.The nonprofit had $2.2 million in assets, lots of worthy targets for donations, and no home.Led by Pete Toolson, the board considered its options. Several worthy charities wanted...
The property owners of Benton and Franklin counties didn’t miss a beat when it was time to pay property tax bills on some $31.5 billion in real estate in April, when the first of two payment deadlines came due.The county treasurers who collect taxes say collections were normal, despite widespread...
A Pasco company specializing in hauling chemicals, de-icers, pesticides and more has a new ownership group led by the insurance agent who covered its business for decades.Chad Messerly and his partners, Brian May and Morgan Haynes, bought Harms Pacific Transport Inc. in a deal that closed July 1.The sellers were...
Terry Brown and his wife, Annie Ackerman-Brown, didn’t develop a business plan or research how they could best help young people in mental anguish when they launched BlessedbyKess.Faith led them to create the nonprofit, which uses virtual reality, or VR, technology to help Tri-Citians reduce stress and improve mental health....
The cancellations spread quickly as Washington and the world shut down over Covid-19 in March. Breakfasts and lunches, a duck race and a Gatsby-themed gala disappeared from the Mid-Columbia calendar. In-person events that generate badly needed dollars to feed low-income seniors, support cancer patients and more were suddenly too dangerous to...
