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VANCOUVER – The future livability, walkability and economic stability of Vancouver’s waterfront rest largely on a man from Lake Oswego.
Barry Cain, president of Gramor Development, will sign a lease with the Port of Vancouver USA to redevelop 3.26 acres of port property directly east of the former Boise Cascade paper mill along the Columbia River.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a good deal, but it’s an OK deal,” he said. “We think it’s really important so we’re willing to pay a little bit more because everything’s coming together at the same time.”
The 50-year lease calls for Cain to pay $16,492 per month, with 2 percent increases annually. The developer must also pay a $104,000 security deposit and $2 million in insurance.
The port would collect about $17 million over the lease’s duration.
Cain and the port’s board of commissioners Tuesday pored over the lease agreement that would allow the developer, doing business as Columbia Waterfront LLC, to build an office complex and hotel and add public access to the river where a parking lot currently sits. Cain plans on negotiating with several hoteliers, including the Red Lion Hotel Vancouver at the Quay, the relocation of which would clear land for public use.
The board tentatively approved the lease but won’t hold an official vote until its regular Tuesday meeting next week.
Port Commissioner Brian Wolfe said a signed lease would spur the port to start realigning a railroad at the quay. The railroad’s realignment and a related land swap would allow the port to redevelop 10 waterfront acres at Terminal One.
“This isn’t the perfect deal by any stretch of the imagination,” Wolfe said, “but it starts to get us where we want to be.”
The agreement comes on the heels of the city of Vancouver’s newly adopted Vancouver City Center Vision and Subarea Plan, an outline of how officials and residents want to see the city grow over the next decade, which City Council unanimously approved Monday.
The waterfront development and Vancouver’s central city plan “are tied at the hip,” Gerald Baugh, the city’s business development manager, said. He told the commission Cain’s project would drive economic development in the city.
The port commission hesitated to approve the lease in part because Commissioner Nancy Baker objected to removing free parking from the site. The lease stipulates the developer must, in some form, retain the 84 parking spaces that are there now as on-street parking, surface parking or a parking structure. Cain must keep the spaces free for five years but then has the option of turning them into pay-to-park stalls.
Baker said she’s worried the port is giving away the last of its public property.
“We had I don’t know how many meetings, and every time they came back wanting a little bit more,” she said. “It’s unconscionable; these have not been fair negotiations.”
She said she will not support the lease’s approval until the parking issue is resolved. However, Tuesday’s meeting ended with port commissioners not changing the lease, only cleaning up some of the language ahead of next week’s vote.
Cain assured the board “even Nancy will like the outcome” when the development gets under way in about three years.
Cain is working with Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects of Portland on a master plan. If the lease is approved, the port will begin receiving payments in September 2008.

If you go

What: Port of Vancouver USA
commission vote on waterfront
property deal
When: 9:30 a.m. Tuesday
Where: Port of Vancouver USA Administrative Offices,
3103 Lower River Road, Vancouver