Vancouver council to get first look at Boise Cascade site plan
Update- Previously: In late January, Gramor Development and its investors wrapped up their purchase of Columbia River property previously owned by Boise Cascade.
- What’s new: After occasional briefings, the Vancouver City Council will meet Monday with developers, investors, architects and others who could make the city’s waterfront vision a reality.
- What’s next: The workshop is from 4 to 6 p.m. Monday at city hall, 210 E. 13th St. CVTV (cable Channel 23) will provide live coverage.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
By Jeffrey Mize, Columbian Staff Writer Time for the big reveal.
For more than a decade, there has been talk of how redeveloping the Boise Cascade industrial site could transform the waterfront and connect downtown to the Columbia River.
This Monday, the Vancouver City Council will meet with those who could make that dream possible.
Council members will spend two hours, from 4 to 6 p.m., with the project’s developers, architects and maybe even some of its local investors.
“It’s a show and tell, and I think we need that,” Mayor Royce Pollard said. “We have had all kinds of talk, and this moves us one step farther.”
Pollard routinely touts the project as a way to create the premier waterfront community on the West’s grandest river.
“We have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to do a great project,” he said. “This is an opportunity most cities would die for.”
Gramor Development, the Tualatin, Ore., company that pieced together the Columbia Waterfront LLC partnership, hasn’t shared much information about its plans for 32.8 acres west of the Interstate 5 Bridge.
During a Feb. 4 council briefing, city officials circulated a rendering depicting a dense riverfront community with 17 buildings.
“This is not like a typical development project,” said Eric Holmes, Vancouver economic development director. “This is an extension of the city’s downtown. And in my mind, we have the benefit of a single developer we can work with to achieve that. It will develop as a series of blocks over a period of years.”
That period is expected to be 15 to 20 years. Holmes believes the first buildings would be ready for occupancy in late 2010 or early 2011, at the earliest.
The project’s design likely will evolve over time, he said. The first building in the revival of Portland’s Pearl District, built more than a decade ago, was a modest six stories, he said.
Today, the Pearl District’s tallest building, The Metropolitan, tops out at 19 stories.
“No one anticipated that type of evolution,” Holmes said.
Monday’s briefing likely won’t get down to the number of floors in individual buildings. Council members will listen and watch as David Hansen of Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects in Seattle walks them through a series of sketches and other materials depicting a project that could represent as much as $1.3 billion in private investment.
The project’s biggest investors — Steve Oliva, Allan Kirkwood, Steven Hansen and George Diamond — also could be on hand for Monday’s discussion, along with engineers, landscape architects and other members of Gramor’s development team.
Said Pollard: “It’s an opportunity for these people to sell us on what they want to do.”
Not that the mayor needs much persuasion. Estimates indicate as many as 2,500 people could work there, not to mention those who would live in up to 3,000 condominiums.
Those numbers have caused Pollard to embrace the project as an “economic engine” that could generate tax revenues to pay for police, fire and transportation.
“The revenue streams created by this project will allow us to do the things we want to do for the rest of our community,” he said. “Not for the downtown, but for the rest of the community.”
There is one big catch: an estimated $27 million for rail improvements, plus another $11.5 million in road projects.
Developers have pledged $8 million toward the $38.5 million package, and BNSF Railway has agreed to contribute $1.7 million. The city hopes to wrangle $7 million from the federal government — Pollard last month went to Washington, D.C., to cajole the area’s congressional delegation — and $5 million from the state.
The Legislature last week approved $910,000 for the project a start in what city officials suspect could be a multiyear endeavor.
The city also has submitted a preliminary application to receive up to $500,000 annually from the state for 25 years through a form of tax increment financing, where tax revenues generated by the project are used to slowly pay off road and rail debt.
City officials believe they have a strong case for state assistance. Their projections indicate the waterfront project would generate $235 million in state and local taxes over 25 years, with 63 percent flowing into state coffers.
Those at city hall have good reason to push for state and federal dollars. Without road and rail improvements, the project won’t be able to achieve the urban densities needed to create a bustling waterfront area.
Earlier this decade, Vancouver fell short of achieving that vibrancy at Tidewater Cove, along the Columbia River between Marine and Wintler parks. The land previously was used by Tidewater Barge Lines, which moved a few miles down river in the early 1990s.
Ray Hickey, who worked his way from deckhand to barge line owner over a 45-year career on the Columbia River, envisioned the area becoming a thriving place for community activity, where people could eat lunch, browse at boutiques, enjoy pleasant afternoons and stroll during summer sunsets.
But neighborhood concerns, poor street access and the necessity of designing a project that could be marketed to buyers and backed by bankers all played a role in Tidewater’s demise from urban center to the low-density but posh residential community that exists today.
Pollard, while being careful not to trash what was built, acknowledged that it fell short of what the city hopes to accomplish at the Boise site.
“Tidewater is a great project, but it didn’t achieve Ray Hickey’s vision,” he said.
Jeffrey Mize covers Vancouver city government and can be reached at 360-735-4542 or jeff.mize@columbian.com.