Ribbon cutting-ceremony at the newly remodeled West Hills Honda dealership in Bremerton. The grand opening marked completion of the first phase of a $20 Million expansion for the Haselwood Auto Group. L-R Michael Bach of American Honda , Bremerton Mayor Cary Bozeman, Co-owner, Joanne Haselwood, co-owner Rick Wiler, West Hills Honda Sales Manager Rod Colon and Roy Shepherd of American Honda.

Gig Harbor is especially seeing a boom of retail projects in several parts of the city. In Gig Harbor North, Costco is nearly completed, with projected opening by the second week of November. With Costco as the anchor tenant, five other retail pads are being built and expected to be ready next spring, and yet another retail project is being planned for the same area.

On the west side of the city, Uptown Gig Harbor has a total of 150,000 square feet of retail space, and the buildings in the upscale shopping center are in various degrees of completion. Borders Books is slated to open in November, and Galaxy Theater next March, with the other tenants including Coldwater Creek, Ben & Jerry’s and Chico’s to open between November and March. Nearby off Olympic Drive, the second phase of the Olympic Square multi-use project is nearly complete. The first phase was the construction of Harbor Greens organic grocery store; second phase includes Forza Coffee, which is expected to occupy the building by the end of October. Medallion Properties, a division of Rush Development Co., is negotiating with several parties including a gym, hair saloon and interior decorator for a total of 7,000 square feet of the space that is part of the last phase. The four 1,075-square-feet “end cap” buildings will be finished between November and next January.

Rush Development is also in the process of building its own new headquarters. The 25,000-squre-foot building will be part of Mallards Landing, where several new buildings are in various phases of planning. They include a bank with a double drive-through, two office/retail buildings of 2,500 square foot each, a three-story, 20,000-sq.ft. office building.

Six other buildings are planned, including five office/warehouse buildings. The projects are separate but are expected to break ground about the same time, as early as September, and be finished within eight months.

In Port Orchard, the relatively new Sedgwick Landing, off Sedgwick and Sydney, is about to be expanded. Permits are in process for one 3,650-square-foot building, half of which will be occupied by Forza Coffee, and another 6,000 square feet of retail next to the new RE/MAX real estate office. Permits are expected “any time,” with construction to start immediately and be finished in the spring. Several big-box retailers, including Target, are also rumored to be ready to announce plans to build at the intersection.

Within sight of that, work continues on the new Lowe’s Home Improvement store currently under construction. Home Depot is also moving forward on plans for a store to be built on property it acquired in 2005 on Bethel Road, with site work and brownfields mitigation already underway.

Plans for a 3-story condominium office building that had been slated for the intersection of Tremont Street and Pottery Ave. have been put on hold until the city finalizes plans for the roundabout it wants to build to replace the traffic lights at the site. If the roundabout moves forward, much of the property intended for the office building may have to be acquired for the project.

Pacific Northwest Title and Smith Barney are among the firms that recently moved into the new Cavalon Place development in Silverdale.

Bremerton is about to see the breakwater for its marina. The in-water construction for the expansion started in July, and the three breakwater sections (each 25 feet long, 10 feet high and 500 feet long) are scheduled to be delivered in mid-September. In November, work will start on the floats. The marina, which will have 235 new permanent slips and 100 guest slips, will open in March, and pre-leasing will begin later in the fall.

The Haselwood Auto Group just celebrated the ribbon-cutting on its newly remodeled West Hills Honda dealership. That project is just the first phase of a $20 million development at Haselwood’s West Hills Autoplex that will see a new, state-of-the-art facility for Heartland Toyota, and the current Heartland building completely remodeled and expanded to house Haselwood’s Premier Chrysler-Jeep dealership, which is now located on Auto Center Way.

Right near there, adjacent to Pendergast Park, the finishing touches are being put on a new office/business complex being developed by Stacy Tucker. It will house her businesses, Chico Towing and Sun Select Windows, as well as provide rental space for other firms.

Work is in full swing in downtown Bremerton on the new two-lane, 950-foot tunnel that will divert vehicle traffic off the ferry from the surface streets, making the area more pedestrian friendly. Detours are in place during the entire duration of construction.

Two office buildings will start construction within the next two months on Wheaton Way near Riddell, one at 89,000 square feet and another at 83,000. The BJC Group of Port Orchard is working on the final phase of Fairway Lane Apartments in Bremerton in the Chico area. A total of 56 units in seven buildings are in various stages of completion, with the final buildings expected to be done by next June.

Another housing project is underway in Silverdale on Randall Way. Olympic Inn, designed for seniors, was approved earlier this summer by the Hearing Examiner. The 99-unit building will be the tallest structure in Silverdale.

Silverdale is also slated for a new Rite Aid on the site of a former used car lot at the intersection of Bucklin Hill Road and Silverdale Way, directly across the street from the Walgreen’s that opened there last year. Also, the new Cavalon Place development, which offers both rental and condominimum office space, at Myhre Road and Bucklin Hill just opened. Smith Barney and Pacific Northwest Title moved in just recently, and more tenants are expected shortly.

On Bainbridge Island, Doug Nelson is doing the punch list on his new business park, which will be home to a number of high-tech firms — some of which were slated to leave the island and Kitsap County, until Nelson was able to satisfy their space needs.

The the sounds of construction will also soon be heard at Islandwood, the nonprofit environmental education center. An expansion of the center is currently in the permitting stages. Although no groundbreaking date has been set yet, construction is expected to start this fall. Funds for the $7.5 million projected costs are still being raised.