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County awaits nitty-gritty on racetrack

This is an artist's rendering of the proposed Bremerton speedway. (Courtesy International Speedway Corp. / The Spokesman-Review)
Associated Press
This is an artist's rendering of the proposed Bremerton speedway. (Courtesy International Speedway Corp. / The Spokesman-Review)

PORT ORCHARD, Wash. – All the giddy speculation and wary concerns expressed last year when Snohomish County was gearing up for a NASCAR track have re-emerged in Kitsap County, the new site chosen by International Speedway Corp.

ISC’s designs on an 850-acre tract north of Seattle near Marysville fizzled when local officials determined the $250 million tab, with ISC kicking in just $50 million, was about $100 million too high.

Kitsap County is still waiting to hear the details of the new proposal announced Thursday.

“It’s a completely different set of circumstances,” said ISC spokesman Stan Tate.

ISC has an option on the land – dealing with one owner this time, as opposed to 30 in Marysville – and “a lot of work to be done,” Tate said Friday. Company officials will be meeting with area residents and officials over the summer to refine their proposal.

Overton & Associates in nearby Belfair owns the site, plus land nearby.

It’s too early to say when the plan will be completed, Tate said. ISC is to cover a significant but not-yet-determined share of the $250 million costs.

“If all goes according to plan, we’ll probably drop the green flag for racing in summer of 2010,” Tate said.

“They haven’t sent a proposal to us yet,” county spokeswoman Lisa Holmer said Friday, one day after ISC announced it had selected a 950-acre site near the Bremerton Airport for a publicly owned, 80,000-seat track. The facility would be leased to ISC for two major weekend events each year plus one weekend with a more regional focus.

It’s not clear what other uses the track would be put to, Holmer said, but it would be the county’s biggest venue by far.

“A variety of different things could be held there – it would be like having Safeco Field here without the roof,” she said.

“We were caught a little off guard,” Holmer said. “We haven’t had anything to do with the planning of this at all. … I just saw the conceptual drawing, which looks like it takes up the whole peninsula” – the Kitsap Peninsula across Puget Sound from Seattle.

The track site and Kitsap County itself are largely rural. About 165,000 of the 240,000 county residents live in unincorporated areas. In the largest city of Bremerton, population 39,535, about a quarter of the residents live in poverty.

The state is already moving to improve infrastructure to the area, with a second Tacoma Narrows bridge under construction and plans to widen State Route 3, which runs next to the proposed raceway, and Washington 16, which connects Tacoma and Bremerton, crossing the Narrows bridge.