Asphalt giant Granite Construction has started building a new 20-acre plant at the Port of Woodland’s Martin's Bar South industrial site on the Columbia River.
The rocks and other asphalt material will be trucked in at first, but Port Commissioner Bob Wile said the goal is to eventually obtain state approval to barge in materials.
That would make the plant the first at the 66-year-old port to use its deepwater access.
The new Woodland facility will replace a Vancouver plant, said Steve Hitzel, who is leading the project for the company.
Granite is a publicly traded company specializing in large-scale civil infrastructure paving, such as on bridges and highways.
The company is leasing a 25-acre strip of port land between the Columbia River and Dike Road west of the Woodland Bottoms.
With the new site, Hitzel said the company can bid for more projects around Longview.
“Our main base of operations is over in (east Vancouver),” he added. “And with all the redevelopment and such going on there, our lease ending here a couple months ago, we've been looking for a new place for our asphalt plant.”
The company signed an 80-year lease in Woodland in 2024, said Chris Herman, executive director of the Port of Woodland. It celebrated breaking ground on the $5 million to $10 million project earlier this month.
Hitzel said the company aims to have the Woodland plant operational by spring.
“The strategy here was we'd really only be out of commission during our offseason,” he said. “Really depends on the weather with making asphalt, but usually in the winter when it's wet, colder, we're not making as much.”
Hitzel said its permits with the Southwest Clean Air Agency would allow them to produce 400,000 tons of asphalt per year, but that they only do half that in a “really good year.”
Hitzel didn’t have numbers on local tax implications or how many jobs the project will bring. The average day of paving might take about 40 workers. Some staff, he said, had already relocated to Cowlitz County.
The company is a union company, he added.
Herman said the company will also pave Dike Access Road before it begins operation.
He celebrated the company’s investment in Woodland — a sentiment Hitzel echoed.
“We're just looking forward to a longterm relationship here with the Port of Woodland and Woodland in general,” Hitzel said. “We're pretty excited for it. It's a big investment for our company, and we're looking forward to continuing some partnerships that we've started there.”
