Two cities demonstrate economic revival by embracing the past.

Story by Zoe Sayler

Tumwater still hears the echoes of the whistle blow that marked the end of the final Olympia Brewery workday on June 20, 2003: The last bottle of Olympia beer brewed with that famous artesian well water had officially been sealed, and the business that once defined Tumwater closed for good. With a brief exception during Prohibition, the bustling brewery had been an icon of the small Puget Sound city since 1896 and so intertwined with its identity that, in the old days, “when the city was running low on water, well, the brewery would just turn the valve,” and divert its supply to where it was needed, recalls John Doan, who served as Tumwater city administrator from 2010 to 2023. The Olympia Brewing Company was the city’s largest employer for decades. “We always described it, in many ways, as the heart of Tumwater.”

ACraft District mural. Credit: Chona Kasinger

Thanks to the tenacity of city officials, a coalition of supporters that spans the state over, and residents’ unrelenting dedication to their city’s history, efforts to leverage Tumwater’s legacy as a way to build its future have already begun.

Over the past 21 years, as anyone who has driven through Tumwater on I-5 can attest, the plant that once buzzed with hundreds of blue-collar workers on just about any weekday of the 20th century has now become a broken-windowed bingo card of urban blight: vandalism, vagrancy, fires so massive they required over a million gallons of that once-precious water to snuff out. “Not just the heart went away,” Doan says. “Watching those buildings deteriorate, and get vandalized, and spray-painted, and burned down…has just been really, really hard on Tumwater.”

The Tuwater brewery site, former home of the Olympia Brewing Company. Credit: Chona Kasinger

Still, the municipal leaders in Tumwater never quite resigned themselves to the brewery’s apparent fate. At the end of 2023, the city received a $500,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Brownfields Program to assess the extent of contamination on the land and to determine what cleanup resources might be required before it can be developed. And Tumwater won’t rest on its laurels waiting for results that could either make or defer the city’s dreams for the site. Thanks to the tenacity of city officials, a coalition of supporters that spans the state over, and residents’ unrelenting dedication to their city’s history, efforts to leverage Tumwater’s legacy as a way to build its future have already begun. Mayor Debbie Sullivan has championed redevelopment as a unifier that could energize stakeholders and bring the people of Tumwater together in the town center they have sorely missed since I-5 tore through in the 1950s. “The owners are enthusiastic, the partners are enthusiastic, and the public is really enthusiastic,” she says.

The brewery's Old Brewhouse Tower. Credit: Chona Kasinger

Gifted the older, brick brewery tower in 2016 by a private property developer and bolstered by community members willing to donate time and money toward saving the 1906 industrial building, Tumwater revamped the city’s logo last year—for the first time since the 1980s—to feature a simple line drawing of the brewhouse flanked by the cascade of Tumwater Falls. “Once you start seeing visual things, it makes a huge difference,” adds Mayor Sullivan.

Tumwater City Administrator Lisa Parks and Mayor Debbie Sullivan in the district's Market Building. Credit: Chona Kasinger

In the three-story, 28,000-square-foot College Heritage Building, a freshly minted development that architecturally echoes the old brewery nearby on Capitol Boulevard, students at South Puget Sound Community College (SPSCC) take classes in business and fermentation microbiology as part of the nation’s first degree in craft alcohol production. Meanwhile, across the parking lot at the Market Building, a newly constructed 17,000-square-foot commercial space with 30-foot-high ceilings, food trucks vie for prime positions out front, and the smell of waffle cones from Sweetlee’s Ice Cream beckons visitors down the airy concourse. Echoes of conversations from the satellite taprooms of Aberdeen’s Mount Olympus Brewing, Tumwater’s Percival Creek Brewing (a collaboration with the students in the SPSCC program) and Chimacum’s Finnriver Cidery float past. Nearby, an amphitheater built to seat 1,500 awaits the performers that Mayor Sullivan plans to bring in as part of her efforts to expand Tumwater’s cultural arts offerings. These are the beginnings of the Craft District, a vibrant, pedestrian-centric commercial area centered on Tumwater’s legacy and established, in part, with dreams of bringing some fresh optimism to those tougher-to-handle brewery sites. “Don’t be afraid to think big,” says Lisa Parks, Tumwater’s new city administrator. “The overall redevelopment of property in this area is very aspirational. It’s not going to happen tomorrow, necessarily, but over time, it will be built.”

Finnriver Cidery's tasting room. Credit: Chona Kasinger

We are developing the highest-tech economy-perhaps in the world-on an industrial base of clean energy systems.
– Washington Governor Jay Inslee

In the early 1940s, the City of Richland sprouted from the desert of Eastern Washington seemingly overnight: As a critical component of the federal government’s secretive Manhattan Project, tens of thousands of newly relocated Richlanders united behind a common vision that some locals still firmly believe saved the world. Employed at the first-ever large-scale nuclear production facility, the Hanford Site, they were tasked with producing the plutonium that would fuel the atomic bomb and, ultimately, help end World War II. “That was a very unique aspect in our history,” says Mayor Theresa Richardson. “So it is something to be proud of.”

Distributing the Hanford Site newsletter in the 1940s. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

But that legacy came at a cost. Though the Hanford Site had shut down all its reactors by the close of the Cold War, major contamination from the site persists: Around 11,000 specialists now work cleaning tanks of radioactive waste, 65 square miles of contaminated groundwater, and other toxic remnants of Hanford’s relatively unregulated nuclear production. “That is still a very, very significant part of our economy,” says Jon Amundson, Richland’s city manager. “There’s been a conversation over time. What do we do when the cleanup is over?” There wasn’t much argument over the answer: Reinvent itself by embracing cutting-edge technology. That’s what Richland has always done.

“Atomic Frontier Days” parade in Richland in 1954. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

As the only nuclear commercial energy facility in the Northwest, Energy Northwest’s Columbia Generating Station has been producing electricity just outside of Richland since 1984. In recent years, spurred by the advent of climate change, nuclear power has taken a place at the center of discussions about sustainable energy production. While critics point to contamination and catastrophes like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, proponents of the technology say that serious efforts toward achieving carbon neutrality ought to include a nuclear-driven zero-emission method. Amid his climate-centric bid in the 2020 presidential election, Governor Jay Inslee spoke clearly to both the urgency of climate change and the scale of the problem. He noted that he wanted to see more research, but seemed cautiously optimistic about the technology and its promise for the region’s future.

The newly opened Uptown Shopping Center in 1951. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

“We are developing the highest-tech economy—perhaps in the world—on an industrial base of clean energy systems,” Inslee said. “What is happening in Central Washington right now is a total transition from a rural-based economy, and a power-based in Tri-Cities, to a high-tech manufacturing center.”

An aerial view of the Hanford Site in 1960. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

In a nod to this development, earlier this year, Inslee signed a state capital budget that earmarks $25 million for piloting an emerging nuclear technology—small modular reactors—in the Richland area.

Small modular reactors simplify nuclear energy production in part because they can be assembled off-site and shipped to a permanent location, allowing facilities to adjust more easily to changes in demand, while their smaller evacuation zones tamp down the fear factor of the still-controversial power source.

The Hanford B Reactor. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Last July, Energy Northwest partnered with startup X-Energy Reactor Company (which was awarded $1.2 billion by the U.S. Department of Energy in 2021 to develop, build, and demonstrate an operational advanced reactor and fuel fabrication facility in Richland by the end of the decade) to jointly produce up to a dozen small modular reactors for central Washington. The first of these reactors should be operational by 2030 and will serve as a carbon-neutral offset to the ebbs and flows of the solar, wind, and hydropower in the clean energy repertoire it already offers the region. Developing a scalable and reliable source of sustainable power looks especially desirable as the state plans to wean itself from fossil fuel facilities like Centralia’s Big Hanaford coal plant, scheduled for closure by 2025.

And Richland’s ambitions don’t stop there. Partnering with the Port of Benton and the private sector, the city and neighboring municipalities have convened once again on a bold and uniting technological vision: It’s not enough just to create jobs and develop a robust economy around clean energy. Richland wants to make a difference on a global scale once again. Given the United States’ recent pledge to triple nuclear power capacity by 2050, “this is not just a Tri-Cities interest,” says Sean O’Brien, executive director of the Energy Forward Alliance, a nonprofit consortium advocating for the area’s clean energy future. “We’re talking about international scale now. And the role that the city of Richland plays in that is one that just really can’t be overlooked.”

This community is known to rally behind the right projects and help them find success.
– Joe Schiessl, Richland Deputy City Manager

Taking advantage of what leaders see as a pivotal opportunity for the region, the Tri-City Development Council (TRIDEC)— which includes representatives from Richland, Kennewick, Pasco, and West Richland on its board of directors—formed the Energy Forward Alliance to bring key players together around a shared strategy for cementing the area’s status as a clean energy hub. The Alliance harnesses a world-class combination of expertise: Energy Northwest runs the nuclear power plant (and with solar, wind, and hydroelectric plants around the region, produces carbon-neutral power for 28 public utilities serving 1.5 million customers). The new Washington State University Tri-Cities Institute for Northwest Energy Futures studies decarbonization plans and trains a workforce to realize them. The Department of Energy’s cutting-edge Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a Hanford Site contractor called the Central Plateau Cleanup Company, and a massive potato manufacturing company called Lamb Weston also have a seat at the table. “We have a vision of where we want to be in the future, and we’re motivated,” Mayor Richardson says. “We want to be the testbed for this kind of development.”

That attitude earned the City of Richland an Innovation in Economic Development Award from the Washington Economic Development Association (WEDA) in 2023 for its early adoption of Targeted Urban Areas (TUAs) property tax exemption created by the legislature to incentivize the construction of industrial and manufacturing facilities. Within a self-determined TUA, cities can offer 10 years of local property tax exemptions on improvements for businesses that meet a set of requirements, like creating at least 25 jobs and offering family wages. TUAs have existed in Washington since 2015, albeit with hyper-specific restrictions that essentially limited them to a few cities in Snohomish County. House Bill 1386, passed in 2021 with the support of AWC, made the tool available across Washington—and thanks to quick action and a watchful eye on the legislature, the City of Richland established the first TUA under the expanded law. “Oftentimes, we’re not competing with other sites in Washington state. We’re competing with sites in different states. And this is something that’s helped level the playing field,” says Richland City Manager Jon Amundson.

Left to right: Richland Deputy City Manager Joe Schiessl, Mayor Theresa Richardson, and City Manager Jon Amundson in Richland's Howard Amon Park. Credit: Chona Kasinger

Already, the incentive has attracted some major players to spend big in and around the former Hanford Site, including French nuclear reactor business Framatome, which will expand its existing Richland plant, and Switzerland-based Atlas Agro, a groundbreaking green fertilizer manufacturer that plans to invest $1.1 billion toward the construction of a new carbon-free facility. Atlas Agro will receive an estimated $20 million in tax exemptions through the program, which will add 158 jobs and pump $35.6 million into the local economy. “It doesn’t take too much research to figure out that the payback is really pretty quick,” especially given that the land likely would have developed more slowly or not at all without the exemption,” Mayor Richardson says. “So it made a lot of sense.”

But TUA tax incentives alone don’t explain why global leaders like Framatome and Atlas Agro put down roots in Richland. Working together, stakeholders in the Tri-Cities have created a region rich with less-tangible value-addeds, from developing a highly skilled workforce to fostering an enthusiastic culture of collaboration between the city, the Port of Benton, TRIDEC, and beyond. “This community is known to rally behind the right projects and help them find success,” says Joe Schiessl, Richland’s deputy city manager. “We were founded as a town to solve a national crisis, to bring us out of war. And so it’s kind of built into who we are.”

The Energy Forward Alliance's Sean O'Brien at Richland's USS Triton Sail Park. Credit: Chona Kasinger

We’re talking about international scale now. And the role that the City of Richland plays in that is one that just really can’t be overlooked.
– Sean O’Brien, Executive Director of the Energy Forward Alliance

For Tumwater, building on its legacy as a beer town didn’t always seem like a viable option. When Miller Brewing abandoned Olympia Brewing in 2003, it left a covenant prohibiting future alcohol production on its former landholdings, making it nearly impossible to jump-start economic activity there. “It’s essentially a concrete building that’s been built around a manufacturing process ... designed to make the beer,” says former city administrator John Doan. The only type of business that could ostensibly make use of the specialized space had officially been banned from passing go. “Part of the transition that had to happen was the community coming to grips with the fact that Miller had left, and no one was coming back,” Doan says.

After 10 years of disuse and impassioned pleas from those trying to sell the site, Miller finally lifted the restriction in 2013. For the buildings, it was too little, too late: Neglect and arson fires rendered whatever infrastructure remained unusable. But when Miller removed the covenant, it gave the rest of the brewery property a new lease on life. Even if the city couldn’t restart the factory itself, it could spur the economic revival of the surrounding area as a commercial district devoted to Tumwater’s suds-soaked past. “This was really about, ‘How do we make something happen at this brewery location?’” Doan says. “The only card we had to play was the legacy of brewing. We had to play that card at that location.”

A reproduction of Olympia Beer's iconic logo in Tumwater's Craft District. Credit: Chona Kasinger

Looking to Walla Walla as an example, Tumwater worked with South Puget Sound Community College, the Port of Olympia, and Washington’s Community Economic Revitalization Board to determine the feasibility of creating a center of excellence for the craft brewing and distilling industries that mimics what the Eastern Washington city has done with wine. In conversations with industry leaders, the city found a wide opening for practical education in the field: Washington ranks fourth in the nation in the number of craft breweries and fifth in the number of craft distilleries, according to the Brewers Association and the American Craft Spirits Association. But without a school devoted to workforce development for their craft, many distilleries and breweries end up training employees on the job. “If they could get people who know what they’re doing, and have those workforce skills at a practical level, then they were super excited,” Doan says. Bolstered by its supportive college president, Dr. Timothy Stokes, the community college has awarded 30 two-year degrees in its brewing and distilling program since 2018; this year, it added a four-year degree for students aspiring to management roles.

But city officials knew that breweries and distilleries weren’t the only ones who would benefit from the Tumwater hub. “We worked hard to build a sort of constituency of folks” who backed the idea, Doan says. “And what that brought was tremendous legislative support for this concept.” He drove to Moxee to attend a meeting of the Washington State Hops Commission, which became a major advocate for the plan, bringing Eastern Washington lawmakers with it. Apple and wheat farmers hopped on board too—for cider and beer, respectively—and the Department of Agriculture followed suit. “You just sort of have to pound the pavement to go out and talk to people,” Doan says. “Figure out who your partners are, who potentially has an interest in what your wishes and dreams are, and see if you can enlist those people’s support.”

Meanwhile in Richland, “cleanup to clean energy” has become a proud rallying cry for that region’s economic rebirth. Coined by Washington State University Tri-Cities Chancellor Sandra Haynes to describe the transition from cleanup work at the Hanford Site toward a carbon-free future of small modular nuclear reactor development, the Department of Energy has adopted the term for its plan to turn former Manhattan Project sites into vast clean energy hubs. Just outside Richland, 30 square miles have been set aside for the purpose. “That’s not something that happens every day for clean energy potential and clean energy development,” Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk said in an informational meeting last September. But Richland is no stranger to once-in-a-lifetime undertakings. “Our community was on the very front lines of solving one of the world’s largest challenges in history,” O’Brien says. “There’s a real linear nature to that storytelling.”

Likewise in Tumwater, the story of Olympia Brewing runs artesian well deep. Some remember smelling hops as they drove down the freeway. Others remember visiting the brewery to sample free beer on Saturdays. People across Washington know what “It’s the water” means. And anyone who was there to witness it remembers the devasting silence that remained after the brewery’s whistle blew one last time. “It gave us something very visible to sell. People understood the story and the history, and they’re like, yeah, we want to be part of this also,” Doan says. “They wanted something they could be proud of. Because they were incredibly proud of the brewery.”

And both cities have strong investment in reviving their stories—the ones that almost everyone knew by heart.