Vancouver City Council approves plan to develop waterfront | News

By Joe English KATU News and KATU.com Staff

The Vancouver City Council approved plans on a development deal that will reshape its waterfront in a late-night vote Monday.

The vote, which occurred just before 10:30 p.m., was unanimous.

The proposal will turn acres of empty industrial space into shops, parks and places to live.

The 32 acres of space, currently owned by Boise Cascade, could be worth billions of dollars to investors. The city of Vancouver is willing to put in about $45 million in infrastructure improvements and lock down development regulations for two decades. The developers plan to put in retail stores, condominiums, offices, and reserve 10 acres for parks and trails.

The city’s planning commission has already scheduled its first hearing on the development’s master plan for Nov. 10, and developers hope to see buildings going up by 2012. It’s a pretty short timeline for a project like this and it doesn’t happen often.

“It’s sort of fortuitous on both sides that we’re at the same place at the same time, enabling the contribution from the developer to occur along with the city’s funding,” said Randy Printz of Columbia Waterfront, LLC.

There are some deadlines set. The city’s work to connect downtown to the waterfront property has to be done by 2011. It will attempt to create a quiet zone by closing off 8th and Jefferson streets before they reach the railroad tracks.

The plan will include improving off-site locations and extending some streets like Esther by plowing through a railroad berm to get to the waterfront.

Hundreds of steps are required in the development process and the council's approval is just one of the first steps to completion of the project.