At Mill Plain One, a 76-acre mixed-use development at Southeast 126th Avenue and Mill Plain Boulevard in Vancouver, steel framework is rising for the third major office building to be constructed at the site. The 75,000-square-foot structure, owned by Park Plaza Inc. and the Ed Peitz family, will be named Park Tower III.
Lyn Lunde, marketing agent for Associated Brokers of Vancouver, said the building was close to being 70 percent leased. However, a major tenant for the new building, Charter Communications, a St. Louis-based cable TV company owned by billionaire Paul Allen, recently backed out of leasing a major portion of the new building, up to 14,000 square feet of space, nearly one entire wing of the building.
“We couldn’t get the building done in time for them,” said Ed Peitz of Park Plaza Inc. “They couldn’t wait until September, when we could open.”
Groundbreaking at Mill Plain One development first began in 1994 with the 80,000-square-foot Park Tower I, a two-story, Class-A office complex. The 73,000-square-foot Park Tower II, also known as the Park Tower Addition, finished construction in 1997, and is connected to Park Tower I by a sky bridge.
Park Tower IV, a fourth office tower, will be built across Park Plaza drive, and Peitz said he hopes to get under way soon with the site reviews for that building.
“We are working on the plans now,” said Peitz. “It going to take about a year to get the permits.”
Park Tower IV will have approximately 120,000 square feet of office space.
The entire development site now includes: The Park at Mill Plain One, a 352-unit apartment complex owned and operated by the Trammel Crow Co.; Applebee’s, Sweet Tomatoes and McGrath’s restaurants; the 98-room Phoenix Inn hotel; a recently opened Kinko’s 24-hour copy center; both a branch location and the operations center for Columbia Credit Union; and the headquarters of Crafts American Group, a catalogue sales service.
Included at the site is a variety of aesthetically constructed storm water detention ponds, pedestrian walkways, benches, waterfalls and outdoor artwork that provide a park-like setting for the office workers and residents in the development. In addition, Ed Peitz places large sculptures, collected while on business trips, at the base of all the central staircases in the buildings. Peitz formerly built and operated 53 Red Lion Hotels & Inns before selling the company 15 years ago.
The Park Tower III’s steel structure is being assembled by Baugh Construction. The two-story, three-wing building will be available for occupancy by fall of this year. Bank of America provided financing for the project.

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Taking advantage of an upswing in prices paid for building materials companies in the global marketplace, a Clark County family-owned and operated firm is throwing out bait and waiting to see what bites.
Ron Webb, his wife Marilyn and their four children, co-owners of three construction materials companies, Aphis Ready Mix, Columbia Sand and Gravel and Aphis Concrete Accessories, a retail store at the corner of N.E. 18th Street and Andresen Road, have put it all up for sale.
“A lot of large companies, international companies that are in the building materials business, are looking for acquisitions,” said Ron Webb. “Many are paying premium dollars for companies like ours.”
Aphis includes five Ready Mix operations in north Bonneville, Camas, east Vancouver, the Port of Vancouver and in Woodland, as well as two sand and gravel operations, one at the Port and one in Linnton, Ore.
Webb said Aphis is currently running 45 Ready Mix trucks to construction sites in the Vancouver/Portland area. In addition, they operate 10 concrete pumping trucks. The store on Andresen sells concrete work accessories, concrete sealers and finishing tools. The combined operation employs 200 people.
Marilyn Webb purchased Aphis in 1975 while she was working for the original owner, Walt Musa Jr. Musa started Aphis in 1968.
The Webb’s son and a co-owner, Dave Webb, is general manager of AphisPiper Group in Lake Oswego and is handling the marketing of the property. Ron Webb said there already has been a number of responses and a few interested individuals have toured the site.
“We are expecting to receive some offers within the month,” he said.
Ron and Marilyn own a condominium in Hawaii and spend winter vacations there. If the business sells, he said, he expects they would be spending more time in Hawaii. However, they could decide that the offers are not good enough.
“We thought we would ‘run this up the flag pole’ and see what kind of response we get,” Ron Webb said. “If we don’t get the response we want, well, we’re content to continue.”

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The architect said this was a special spot from the very beginning when plans were being drawn up for the campus. Standing at the center of what is now the plaza, visitors and students can see an impressive view of Mount St. Helens to the north and Mt. Hood to the east.
“It is the physical heart of this institution,” said Greg Baldwin, a partner in the architectural firm of Zimmer Gunsul Frasca, while standing on the very spot at the center of the plaza where the Firstenburg Family Fountain will be built this summer.
E.W. Firstenburg and wife Mary and their son Bruce, now president of the family-owned bank, attended the ground-breaking for the fountain June 29 on the Washington State University Vancouver campus. The Firstenburgs donated $500,000 in November for the fountain through the Community Foundation for Southwest Washington.
Firstenburg is the chairman of Vancouver’s First Independent Bank, begun as a single bank office in Ridgefield in 1910 and then merged with the State Bank of Battle Ground in 1954 when it was first named First Independent Bank.
In his speech at the June 29 ceremony, Baldwin said the fountain would be a focus for student activities, a place that would stimulate, “the kind of place (students) can come and visit, they can develop ideas, or just contemplate.”
The fountain area will be divided into four areas paved with granite matching the surrounding native basalt stone walls. For sitting, columnar basalt will be placed around the areas, positioned sideways with a few left standing on end.
Spread around the plaza will be over 130 jets of water combining mist and streams of water to cool the air on hot days. Pathways will criss-cross the plaza. To the west, several nearly grown trees 6 inches around and 30 feet high will be planted, beeches or oak, depending on availability.
Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership, a Portland architectural firm, has designed all the buildings at the WSU Vancouver campus, including the fountain. Baugh Construction will do the construction work.

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Construction is more than halfway done and ahead of schedule on the second phase of Vancouver’s Marine Park Water Reclamation Facility that includes a couple of design changes to improve the facility’s efficiency.
By the end of the $20 million construction project, with the completion date possibly moved up now to the end of this year, Vancouver’s Sewer and Water Services will double the capacity of wastewater treatment at the site from 8 million gallons per day to 16 million gallons.
Begun in the spring of 1999, the project includes additional effluent pumps, two aerated grit chambers, a primary clarifier extension with three additional primary clarifier tanks, three large aeration basin chambers, two secondary clarifier pools and pumps, and a set of new large-capacity pumps at the outflow building to solve a problem at that end of the process.
“The city has done a phenomenal job building this plant,” said Gary Hulz, Montgomery Watson’s construction manager on site. “It isn’t like any other plant I’ve worked on. You can’t tell from outside what it is.”
Montgomery Watson Americas Inc. is a worldwide construction engineering firm based in Denver, Colo., with offices in Portland, Seattle and Boise. The company has been contracted as construction managers for several capital improvement projects for the city of Vancouver.
The facility was designed by CH2M Hill of Seattle and includes the final phase-3 construction that will increase the capacity even more.
In addition to the construction going on now, recently the city awarded a $1.2 million contract to Hickey Marine Enterprises, a marine construction firm in Vancouver owned by Cliff Larson. Hickey Marine will design, build and install an effluent outfall diffuser which will extend the outflow pipe into the Columbia River. This part of the project is scheduled to be completed this fall.
Two changes have been made in the design of phase 2. The first was to install pumps at the effluent outfall area of the process. Gravity does most of the work getting the water through the treatment process. However, it was found that when the Columbia River reaches high water, gravity is not enough to get the treated water out into the river. Sets of powerful pumps were added to the design to give the treated water a push in high water conditions. The main outflow pipe was altered and new pairs of outflow pipes were installed and merged with the main pipe at the east end of the facility.
Engineers also discovered that the aeration basin chambers, where the bacteria that eat waste are pushed through the water, could get the job done with fewer aerators. It was decided then that fewer aerators would be installed in the new chambers.
The design of the plant features a brick-veneered and blue steel-roofed facility, to match the architecture with the Water Resources Education Center in the area. The center includes meeting room facilities as well as a history museum of wetland and river environments and a visual explanation of wastewater treatment by the Marine Park facility.

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Park Towers comprise tens of thousands of square feet of apartments and Class-A office space

by ROBERT SCHOENBERG,VBJ Staff Reporter

At Mill Plain One, a 76-acre mixed-use development at S.E. 126th Avenue and Mill Plain Boulevard, steel framework is rising for the third major office building to be constructed at the site. The 75,000-square-foot structure, owned by Park Plaza Inc. and the Ed Peitz family, will be named Park Tower III.
Lyn Lunde, marketing agent for Associated Brokers of Vancouver said the building was close to being 70 percent leased. However, a major tenant for the new building, Charter Communications, a St. Louis-based cable TV company owned by billionaire Paul Allen, recently backed out of leasing a major portion of the new building, up to 14,000 square feet of space, nearly one entire wing of the building.
“We couldn’t get the building done in time for them,” said Ed Peitz of Park Plaza Inc. “They couldn’t wait until September, when we could open.”
Groundbreaking at Mill Plain One development first began in 1994 with the 80,000-square-foot Park Tower I, a two-story, Class-A office complex. The 73,000-square-foot Park Tower II, also known as the Park Tower Addition, finished construction in 1997, and is connected to Park Tower I by a sky bridge.
Park Tower IV, a fourth office tower, will be built across Park Plaza drive, and Peitz said he hopes to get under way soon with the site reviews for that building.
“We are working on the plans now,” said Peitz. “It going to take about a year to get the permits.”
Park Tower IV will have approximately 120,000 square feet of office space.
The entire development site now includes: The Park at Mill Plain One, a 352-unit apartment complex owned and operated by the Trammel Crow Co.; Applebee’s, Sweet Tomatoes and McGrath’s restaurants; the 98-room Phoenix Inn hotel; a recently opened Kinko’s 24-hour copy center; both a branch location and the operations center for Columbia Credit Union; and the headquarters of Crafts American Group, a catalogue sales service.
Included at the site is a variety of aesthetically constructed storm water detention ponds, pedestrian walkways, benches, waterfalls and outdoor artwork that provide a park-like setting for the office workers and residents in the development. In addition, Ed Peitz places large sculptures, collected while on business trips, at the base of all the central staircases in the buildings. Peitz formerly built and operated 53 Red Lion Hotels & Inns before selling the company 15 years ago.
The Park Tower III’s steel structure is being assembled by Baugh Construction. The two-story, three-wing building will be available for occupancy by fall of this year. Bank of America provided financing for the project.

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Schlecht Construction of Vancouver has started work on a 15,360-square-foot pre-engineered steel building as part of the second phase of construction at a 4.8-acre commercial and light industrial site in Woodland.
Schlecht is building the structure in the Woodland Business Center on the corner of Schurman Way and Heritage Street. The general contractor for the project is Glacier Contractors, which has completed all the site preparation and concrete work.
Construction of the building will be finished by the end of July. The steel frame, walls and the roof are pre-cut and drilled for quick installation.
Workers just “bolt it all together,” said Schlecht Construction project manager Mark Jackson.
The owner of the Woodland Business Center is Kevin Schnabel, through his company, Columbia Valley Properties. Schnabel also owns Glacier Contractors.
Building space is available in the phase-2 building in a minimum of 2,500-square-foot allotments. Space can be added to this size in 1,250-square-foot increments. Overhead clearance will be 18 feet with 12-feet wide by 18-feet high loading dock doorways. Loading will be at grade level and all the spaces share a common outside loading area.
In the first phase of the development, Schlecht did the same type of work assembling a 14,400-square-foot steel building that is now 75 percent leased. When phase-2 is also 75 percent leased, construction will begin on a third building. Four buildings are planned for the development.
Tenants in the first building include Telephones and Moore, which installs telephone and Internet access systems; American Windows and Doors, a distributor; and Vital-Nutrients, a contract vitamin and nutrients manufacturer.
Schnabel said he currently is negotiating with a possible tenant for the new building, however, “Nothing serious has come to the table yet,” he said.
The leasing agent is Randy Reuter of Norris Beggs & Simpson.

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by ROBERT SCHOENBERG, VBJ Staff Reporter

Schlecht Construction of Vancouver has started work on a 15,360-square-foot pre-engineered steel building as part of the second phase of construction at a 4.8-acre commercial and light industrial site in Woodland.
Schlecht is building the structure in the Woodland Business Center on the corner of Schurman Way and Heritage Street. The general contractor for the project is Glacier Contractors, which has completed all the site preparation and concrete work.
Construction of the building will be finished by the end of July. The steel frame, walls and the roof are pre-cut and drilled for quick installation.
Workers just “bolt it all together,” said Schlecht Construction project manager, Mark Jackson.
The owner of the Woodland Business Center is Kevin Schnabel, through his company, Columbia Valley Properties. Schnabel also owns Glacier Contractors.
Building space is available in the phase-2 building in a minimum of 2,500-square-foot allotments. Space can be added to this size in 1,250-square-foot increments. Overhead clearance will be 18 feet with 12-feet wide by 18-feet high loading dock doorways. Loading will be at grade level and all the spaces share a common outside loading area.
In the first phase of the development, Schlecht did the same type of work assembling a 14,400-square-foot steel building that is now 75 percent leased. When phase-2 is also 75 percent leased, construction will begin on a third building. Four buildings are planned for the development.
Tenants in the first building include Telephones and Moore, which installs telephone and Internet access systems; American Windows and Doors, a distributor; and Vital-Nutrients, a contract vitamin and nutrients manufacturer.
Schnabel said he currently is negotiating with a possible tenant for the new building, however, “Nothing serious has come to the table yet,” he said.
The leasing agent is Randy Reuter of Norris Beggs & Simpson.

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Year-round fountain will have seating and views of two mountains

by ROBERT SCHOENBERG, VBJ Staff Reporter

The architect said this was a special spot from the very beginning when plans were being drawn up for the campus. Standing at the center of what is now the plaza, visitors and students can see an impressive view of Mount St. Helens to the north and Mt. Hood to the east.
“It is the physical heart of this institution,” said Greg Baldwin, a partner in the architectural firm of Zimmer Gunsul Frasca, while standing on the very spot at the center of the plaza where the Firstenburg Family Fountain will be built this summer.
E.W. Firstenburg and wife Mary and their son Bruce, now president of the family-owned bank, attended the ground-breaking for the fountain June 29 on the Washington State University Vancouver campus. The Firstenburgs donated $500,000 in November for the fountain through the Community Foundation for Southwest Washington.
Firstenburg is the chairman of Vancouver’s First Independent Bank, begun as a single bank office in Ridgefield in 1910 and then merged with the State Bank of Battle Ground in 1954 when it was first named First Independent Bank.
In his speech at the June 29 ceremony, Baldwin said the fountain would be a focus for student activities, a place that would stimulate, “the kind of place (students) can come and visit, they can develop ideas, or just contemplate.”
The fountain area will be divided into four areas paved with granite matching the surrounding native basalt stone walls. For sitting, columnar basalt will be placed around the areas, positioned sideways with a few left standing on end.
Spread around the plaza will be over 130 jets of water combining mist and streams of water to cool the air on hot days. Pathways will criss-cross the plaza. To the west, several nearly grown trees 6 inches around and 30 feet high will be planted, beeches or oak, depending on availability.
Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership, a Portland architectural firm, has designed all the buildings at the WSU Vancouver campus, including the fountain. Baugh Construction will do the construction work.

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If drugs or alcohol are the problem in the work place, it is getting harder to hide

by ROBERT SCHOENBERG, VBJ Staff Reporter

Increasingly, it is becoming standard procedure for employers to test prospective employees for drug use. The technology of drug testing is improving and makes testing simpler and quicker with accurate results that save time and money, prompting more employers to test.
Often people think of typical drug users as unemployed, stealing and robbing to support their habit. Some believe drug users are mainly homeless, or are uneducated, coming from the dregs of society.
However, according to Charles Martin, president of Martin Diagnostics International, “The drug problem has infiltrated all segments of society. If you look at the latest statistics, it is just not confined to just one socioeconomic class.” Martin addressed drug testing issues at a seminar last month held at the Salmon Creek Shilo Inn.
In a report issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 6.3 million full-time workers admitted to using illegal drugs in 1997. The most likely of the industries with employees who use drugs were bar and restaurant workers, as well as construction and transportation workers.
Statistics from this report indicate that the segment of the workforce with by far the greatest number of employees connected with drug use was the construction industry with 14 percent of those working testing positive during drug screening procedures in 1997.
Nevertheless, drug testing in the workplace has not become a normal procedure without its share of controversy. The American Civil Liberties Union has been fighting drug testing for a number of years based on the individual’s right to privacy.
The ACLU contends that testing is unfair, often inaccurate and unproven as a means of stopping drug abuse. They argue that because there are so few privacy laws, millions of Americans are tested yearly, even though they are not suspected of drug use.
They do concede that every employer has the right to expect workers not to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol while on the job, but argue the employer should not have the right to require employees to prove their innocence by taking a drug test.
Even with those arguments, nearly 60 million drug tests are performed annually. On-site drug testing – which includes pre-employment, random drug testing, post-accident or “for cause” testing – is increasing by almost 40 percent a year.
“Drug testing is becoming quite a big business,” Martin said. “It is driving a billion-dollar drug testing market worldwide.”
The fastest growing segment, said Martin, is known as rapid on-site testing using technologies developed over the last decade and now coming on the marketplace.
Currently, drug testing comprises a screening procedure and a follow-up confirmation test if the sample is “inconclusive.” That is, instead of calling a positive test one that has found illegal drugs in the sample, “inconclusive” indicates that the screening test revealed evidence of drugs in the sample, and the sample will have to undergo further analysis to be conclusive.
Currently, just the screening procedure can take a number of days. If the test is post-accident, then it can sometimes require that the employee involved in the accident be accompanied by a supervisor to the collection site, and then the employee who is the subject of the test is often on leave until the results are returned. Many work hours can be lost, often for nothing.
Martin said he hears repeatedly from the employers, “We get the results back and 95 percent of the time they are negative.”
The advantage of rapid on-site testing is that the results can be known in just a few minutes. The sample is taken and a plastic cartridge is inserted into the sample. The cartridge can test for up to nine drugs including cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.
In a post-accident scenario, a supervisor can know within minutes whether or not to put an employee back to work. Moreover, if the results are inconclusive, only then is the employee asked to leave work until the conformation test is done.
A confirmation test, unlike the screening test, can actually show the quantities of the drug in the sample. It is from these results that disciplinary action can be taken.
“The most accurate methods in terms of confirmation are found in the laboratory,” said Martin. “Any screening test must be confirmed with laboratory methods.”
As an example, Martin used the popular pregnancy tests offered in pharmacy stores. He said they are just screening tests and should not be relied on completely.
“You wouldn’t want to name the baby based on a screening test. You would want to wait to have it confirmed by a doctor,” he said.
A recent addition to rapid on-site testing is the alcohol screening saliva swab. Taking a saliva sample can indicate alcohol levels as low as .02 percent, the results of a single martini or a bottle of beer.
Rapid on-site testing is not yet available for general use. But, such companies as Advanced Diagnostic Services of Vancouver can perform on-site testing with results within an hour and confirmation results within the next 48 hours, screening for five drugs.
Martin listed three basic procedures employers should set for a working drug policy:
• Employers must keep in mind the screening test only indicates drugs in the sample; a confirmation test in a laboratory is necessary before any disciplinary action can take place.
• It is important to carefully document the drug testing procedure.
• The company must have a clear and concise drug policy the employees understand which states unequivocally the company’s position and the consequences for using drugs in the work place.

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by ROBERT SCHOENBERG, VBJ Staff Reporter

If any place is going to have a population explosion in Clark County in the next few years, it will probably be Washougal, the little town along State Route 14 east of Camas on the way to the Gorge.
Chain stores are taking notice lately of the town in the eastern portion of Clark County. Grocery chain Safeway has built a new store there and so has Longs Drugs. The reason for the interest: the number of new rooftops, a demographer’s indication that a location needs more retail stores.
Conservatively, over 1,500 new single-family residential homes are planned to be built in the next two years. The only consideration holding back developers might be finding people to buy the new homes, and according to real estate agents in Washougal, that does not seem to be a problem.
“I think the developers timing could not be better,” said Joan Hayden, manager of Prudential Northwest Properties real estate offices in Camas.
In Vancouver, she said, housing has saturated the east end of town, along N.E. 164th Avenue corridor, and now the city has its traffic problems to deal with, sending new home buyers looking for alternatives.
“I know the business for this office in particular has been doing just great. We are having much better business than last year,” she said. “We are just getting so many more people. They are hearing about this area, the marketing that Camas and Washougal are doing, the marketing that we are doing. We have a constant traffic of walk-in people.”
It all seems to be coming together for Washougal, she said. The reason for the interest may be infrastructure.
According to city officials, in February of this year, the city finished an expansion of the sewer system increasing its capacity. With that increased capacity, developers are quickly hooking up their subdivisions. They are ready to build and sell houses.
Monte Anderson, the City of Washougal’s planning director, listed 26 subdivision projects in the works so far this year. One of the largest is Pacific Lifestyles Homes’ Sunset Ridge on the east side of Washougal.
Some of the lots in the Sunset Ridge subdivision run alongside the 16th fairway of the Orchard Hills Golf Club. Kevin Wann, owner of Pacific Lifestyles Homes of Vancouver, said he has sold 23 homes in three months.
By far the largest is Lookout Ridge, located on the hillside northwest of town above Shepherd Road, with 469 buildable lots available on 106 acres. DeCosta Properties, along with homebuilder Hayden Homes, is developing the site.
The road for the first phase of Lookout Ridge was finished recently, and model homes along with five others are under construction. The second part of the first phase is located higher up on the hillside. Michael Anders, owner of DeCosta, said he is submitting a home to be built there for the 2001 Parade of Homes.
McDonald Property’s Granite Highlands development, 425 lots on 112 acres just east of the Lookout Ridge development, starts construction as soon as an access road is finished. Others have plats recorded and the developers have been building homes over the last year, like Orchard Hills with 50 lots, and Rolling Meadows with 142 lots.

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