EVERETT — The Boeing Co. has decided to build the carbon-fiber-composite wing for the new 777X at Paine Field here and could make an announcement as soon as Tuesday, The Seattle Times reports.
A decision to build a wing factory in Everett would gradually create several thousand jobs in Snohomish County starting around 2018, when airplane assembly is to begin.
With the Jan. 3 acceptance of a Machinists contract extension, the company had already promised to build the wing somewhere in metro Puget Sound. If the Times story is correct, the most likely location is mere feet from the big Everett factory, although there are other options at Paine Field, too.
The Times quoted unnamed “people with knowledge of the plans” who said the company is considering knocking down some office buildings just northeast of the plant and also use existing parking space to build the new wing line.
A decision to build the longest wings Boeing’s ever made in Everett isn’t surprising — the only other viable option was Frederickson in Pierce County, where Boeing has a plant that does composite work for the existing 777 and for the 787. As The Herald reported in January, transportation would have been a challenge had Frederickson been chosen.
And there’s plenty of room at Paine Field, on property Boeing already owns and elsewhere.
Under authority of the state, the county and Everett have streamlined permitting — promising to go from filing an application to issuing a permit in four weeks — and the county has offered to help Boeing defray the cost of a new plant if the company is interested in undeveloped county-owned land on the west side of the Paine Field.
Boeing has said it would need to begin construction of the 1.1-million-square-foot wing plant by November.
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