Perhaps because it is out of sight, most prospective local entrepreneurs don’t think of the Port of Bremerton as having enormous business growth potential. They would be wrong.

The Port District, established in 1913, covers a large part of Kitsap County, from the Mason and Pierce County lines in the south to Silverdale in the north, and includes the Bremerton and Port Orchard marinas, Bremerton National Airport, and Olympic View Industrial Park.

Airport and industrial park expansion is the main theme at the Port this year. The most talked-about news item has been the recent announcement to go ahead with construction of a new $2.1 million, 21,000-square-foot aircraft hangar, which, it is hoped, will be the magnet that attracts new aviation-related business to the bustling airport.

Construction of the new hangar is expected to begin this spring, and be completed by the end of the year. The intended tenant is Avian Aeronautics, which has been providing regular aircraft maintenance services in its present 6,000-square-foot hangar. When it moves, the present hangar will be torn down to allow for runway expansion. In the new location, Avian will offer maintenance facilities for aircraft ranging from small private planes to larger turbo-prop and jet aircraft. There will be space enough to accommodate ten small private aircraft or one large corporate twin-jet in the hangar.

Bremerton National provides full airport facilities for aircraft up to 737 and 727 sizes, and has the advantage of being located in a part of the state that is minutes away from Seattle by air, but in an area that does not suffer from the heavy traffic congestion and crime problems encountered near SeaTac and Boeing Field.

Bremerton National was never intended to serve the same sort of aviation needs as SeaTac. “It’s more like Boeing Field,” said Tim Thomson, Director of Business Development at the Port. At Boeing Field, small to medium sized aircraft avail themselves of all the servicing and maintenance facilities they need, without having to jostle with the big jets.

Between the airport’s two runways, once the infrastructure has been upgraded, there will be 580 acres of land available, ample room for construction of several new hangars and airport buildings as business clients arrive to take advantage of the prime location of this airport. And prime it is, with a location immediately adjacent to Highway 3, making easy connections to Bremerton, Tacoma, Seattle, and to the many naval facilities in the area. That would also give businesses locating there easy access to the deep-water ports of Tacoma and Seattle.

But that isn’t all. The airport and industrial park also are served by the Puget Sound & Pacific Railroad, which runs lines out to Gray’s Harbor, up to Bangor, and down to Chehalis, where it connects with the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe line to Oregon, California, Arizona, and also to all points east and north, including Canada.
The Olympic View Industrial Park, located on the opposite (west) side of Highway 3, was opened in the 1970s, and offers 480 acres of leasable land for industrial and other business developments. According to Thomson, leases may be of any duration, from month-to-month to any number of years. There are five available lots in the park. One is immediately adjacent to Highway 3, while the others are situated conveniently between the highway and the Puget Sound & Pacific Railroad line.

Interested prospective entrepreneurs should contact Thomson for the full details. You’ll find the retired navy Intruder pilot extremely knowledgeable and willing to talk for hours about aviation.

One idea that’s been bandied about is the construction of airplanes at the expanding airport. There is ample room for construction of fabrication hangars and machine shops right adjacent to the runways. Aircraft up to business jet size could easily be fabricated here, and with the huge layoffs being carried on at Boeing there would be a ready source of skilled engineers and technicians.

The big name in smaller aircraft fabrication these days is Bombardier, Inc., of Quebec. It has been slowly buying up aircraft manufacturing companies over the years, and now own Canadair, Short, DeHavilland, and Learjet, and have become the third largest aircraft manufacturer in the world. The facilities at Bremerton National could easily be tailored to a company like that.

For more information on the Port contact Thomson, at (360) 674-2381, Ext. 24, or timt@portofbremerton.org.