How bizarre to review a business park, huh? Except that this business park contains the remains of a never-completed nuclear power plant, most notably the two massive cooling towers associated with a traditional power plant. While the Hanford Site in Eastern Washington was instrumental to the Manhattan Project, there is a noticeable lack of nuclear energy projects in the Pacific Northwest (with only two active reactors that I know of- at said Hanford Site, and the student run reactor at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.) Trojan Nuclear Power Plant in Oregon has been closed for many years and it's distinctive cooling tower was demolished back in 2006- so where can you go for some photo shoots and pseudo-urban exploration? Well, Satsop is within daily driving distance from Seattle and Portland and considering the price (free,) it is well worth stopping by. read more

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A short 13 minute detour off the highway on our way to Ocean Shores. Pretty cool to see the abandoned (unfinished) nuclear power plants up close - even though they are a gentle reminder of the government wasting more of our hard earned money. A few side items to note - the business park has hundreds (I mean hundreds) of brand new Volkswagens waiting for their forever home, so feel free to look around. BUT don't look too closely because there is a security guard with a lead foot who loves to mad-dog you from the comfort of the front seat of his Ford Focus (1989 - 92 model). There is also a huge boring machine on site which begs the question - are there tunnels below these nuclear structures and if so did the forgiving tax payers of the beautiful Pacific Northwest pay for this rusting eye sore? In any event - the power plants are pretty cool to see. read more

Satsop Business Park - Landmarks & Historical Buildings Near Me - Elma, Washington

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A slight detour from Highway 101 but the abandoned Satsop Nuclear Plant is still relatively close to the highway as far as detours go. You can see how close it is from 101. The Satsop Nuclear Plant was a nuclear facility that never became operational. I'm a child of the late Cold War Era and whenever I see cooling towers like this it makes me want to run the other way. Lol! Since this facility never became operational the general public can pretty much go right up to the towers. The area is not completely abandoned though. There is a business park that is here as well. The Satsop Plant has had a number of films shot on location here like The Hunger Games, Divergent and Transformers: Age of Extinction. Music videos have also been filmed here as well. The attraction is free so that is cool but despite the ability to get "pretty close" the security team for the company that is at the business park may get suspicious and there is no trespassing....so explore but don't explore. ;) Weekends are pretty dead in the industrial park but you know....you didn't hear it from me. Lol! read more

Satsop Business Park - Cooling tower at Satsop Nuclear Power Plant - Landmarks & Historical Buildings Near Me - Elma, Washington

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So cool. Constructed beginning in 1977 and stopped in 1983 this nuclear plant was 76% complete but due to a $961 million budget shortage the towers were never completed. It is a training site now for various businesses but it's so cool to see what would have been. Also, it's weird that they didn't know they were missing like almost a billion dollars to build this joint. Anyway, it's a nice stop while in Elma. read more

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This is worth the detour if you enjoy eerie and creepy destinations. We happened to arrive on a dreary day, and the rain and fog created an interesting atmosphere. We enjoyed driving around and taking photos at the reactors (no trespassing, though). A few tricks randomly showed up and followed us around, so we think there is active security. It was totally awesome, though. read more

Satsop Business Park - This is one of the reactors. - Landmarks & Historical Buildings Near Me - Elma, Washington

Everything was open......... To a degree. There are two reactor (empty) reactors standing there. Their mystery in the building such a compound only to be abandoned. It was really cool seeing what you could see, because if these tubes were active...... You would never get this close --- ever!! Well worth the price of admission ----- FREE and you could walk around, but not go behind the chainlink fence. If you are in the area.... Go! Go! Go! read more

I worked in "hole 3" as a carpenter from Sept '79 to '83. I made my 1st trip back there last summer. I was shocked that I was the only person there. All the time I worked there their were 3,000 construction workers and 3,000 office people working and now nothing, very sad, what a waste of money, time and the lives of the workers killed. The cooling towers are 496' tall, the walls are 1' thick. I worked on the reactor building on the left. Most of the building, just guessing 3/4 of it is underground. The bottom floor is 9' thick of concrete, the outside wall is 5' thick with an inter wall another 5' thick. Their are 4 or 5 floors to the containment building that are 2 and 3 feet thick. There's so much rebar in the walls and the slabs that you almost can't see through to the other side. as far as I know the reactor is still in hole 3, it weighs 700 tons. It was placed in there by "Big Blue," the largest movable crane in the world, "Big Blue" crashed and burned a few years later setting a roof for a football stadium back east killing a few iron workers. Google big blue to see the video. I thought Grays Harbor got it's name because it rained all the time, I was always wearing rain gear. Their were a few accidents on the site. 2 carpenters were killed falling from cooling tower #5. It was about 1/2 way finished when a concrete form pulled away from the wall, the carpenters were tied off to it. A few iron workers died in falls and a labor was run over and killed. There was another time when a "Chicago Bridge & Iron" crane collapsed, It was bolted to the top of the containment vessel, I can still see the rust marks. It fell in an area where their was 100+ guys working, luckily we had the day off. Mt St. Helens erupted and covered the site with ash and we were all sent home. The crane crashed through every floor of the reactor building and embedded itself into the 9' thick slab, it would have killed over 100 people, including me. We were told, at the time to not talk to anybody and cameras weren't allowed anyway. The company, Morrison-Knudson was self-insured so safety wasn't at the top of the list. :-) It sucks that there isn't more pictures of the workers building the place, cameras weren't allowed on the job site. Also at the time construction work was scarce so you didn't want to get fired. My boss fired over 100 carpenters while I was there, tough business. read more

Cool, cool, cool... Its just plain cool! We saw this place while driving by and decided to stop there, it didn't take long to get to and had easy access so you can practically walk into the thing! read more

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The title is extremely erroneous as this site is NOT abandoned but converted to a business park. It's run by the Port of Gray's Harbor and has space available for lease or rent for film, production, etc. read more

If you enjoy exploring giant, creepy modernist relics then this is the place! Some friends and I passed through on our way down the coast, and it was worth the slight detour off the I-5. As others have mentioned, the site appears abandoned and there was no visible activity at 5pm on a Tuesday. I say APPEARS abandoned, because there are in fact several businesses operating on the grounds around the cooling towers. It turns out these businesses don't appreciate it when explorers venture off the county roads and onto private land. We got some great shots and had a lot of fun, but in hindsight we would have been better off contacting the business park for a tour, where you can legally venture beyond the "no trespassing" signs! http://www.satsop.com/contacts.html read more

This place is really cool! It's awesome to get see up close and it only gives you a little bit of cancer! Totally worth it. I would go again any time. read more

It's worth a little detour from the highway to go see and take photos. The nuclear plant was never finished, but the area itself is not abandoned and is an active business park, so be careful where you park if you get out to explore. I wasn't chased away, but I did get some odd looks - most of the other vehicles around are workers, I presume - lots of trucks. read more

Cool for the kids, pictures and education, bet most people didn't even know we had an abandoned nuke site even in the NW!