According to market expert Allie MacAlister, Forbes, a major name in the financial world, says the Tri-Cities, Washington (Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland) should expect the second largest job growth in the entire United States in 2009.
Hiring at Hanford should begin soon thanks to $2 billion from the economic stimulus bill, and a plan to use cleaned up land for an energy park should help sustain jobs here.
A lot of remarkable things explain the population growth over the years.
The construction of the vitrification plant at Hanford as well as highway and housing construction, many commercial projects have pushed construction employment to the highest level in more than 25 years.
In Allie’s opinion the quality of life and affordable cost of living will continue to fuel growth in the Tri-Cities.
While it sometimes feels the focus of the Western Washington media on the wine industry glares on Walla Walla and Yakima counties, the majority of the state’s wine jobs are in the Tri-Cities, and the heart of the state’s wine industry is likely Prosser, where the wine industry has made an indelible mark on that community.
There are over 200 wineries in the Columbia Valley and the Tri-Cities is at the heart of it all.
She believes the housing market conditions will continue to experience the steady upward growth pattern enjoyed for most of the past 10 years.
The Department of Energy plans to spend enough money from the economic stimulus bill to pay wages for more than 4,000 and that will pump enough money into the Tri-City area economy to create 12,400 jobs in total.
And she believes that this will quickly deplete the current inventory of homes we have available in our market and spur increased new construction.
The Tri-City area already has a wide array of research, education, training, business and labor organizations in place needed to create a new green energy economy for the region and state, said Keith Klein, executive director of the Tri-City Local Business Association.
The influx of stimulus funded jobs, green energy focused research and one of the most affordable locations will continue to bring more and more people to the Tri-Cities.
For housing alone, in the Tri-Cities during the third quarter of last year, according to the Washington State University Center for Real Estate Research, median prices were reported to be $172,400.
This was a little more than a third of the $472,000 median cost of a home in King County. In Snohomish County, just north of King County, the median price was $370,000.
South of King, in Pierce County, the median price was $288,700 and farther south, Thurston County was at $270,000.
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