A newly designed Terminal 2, Berth 7 facility is being constructed at the Port of Vancouver. The project will redevelop the port’s mineral bulk facility into a large export facility.

The mid-sized facility will be able to handle more than 3 million tons of soda ash on an annual basis once complete.

The project combines capabilities of the Vancouver Bulk Terminal, a joint venture between Nautilus International Holding Corp. and Neltume Ports, the Port of Vancouver USA and Solvay, a leader in soda ash.

Soda ash is used for purposes such as manufacturing glass and lithium-ion batteries. Natural soda ash coming to the port is an essential ingredient for toothpaste, baking soda and powder, detergents and other products.

The expanded capacity will support expansion of Solvay’s Green River, Wyoming, soda ash operations. The terminal will also add export capacity to the North American soda ash industry, which is recognized as the world’s fastest-growing natural soda ash producing region, according to a Port of Vancouver news release.

Alex Strogen, chief commercial officer at the Port of Vancouver USA, said the project is a combination of demolishing existing infrastructure and building new infrastructure.

The redeveloped facility will feature expanded storage space, upgraded rail unit train access and state-of-the-art cargo handling systems. It will include a new ship loader and a conveyer system.

Strogen said he imagines this will be the most modern soda ash facility in the world.

“It will have the most advanced dust mitigation on it,” Strogen said.

Johannes Viljoen, program manager of Vancouver Bulk Terminal, said the system is completely enclosed and has dust collection at every transfer point. The conveyor belts will be inside, so no wind will be able to sweep materials while being loaded. The material is being loaded through a specially designed chute that will bring materials down in a controlled fashion into the hull of the vessel.

Strogen said while there is a lot of uncertainty with global trade, it is refreshing to have this project that will send American products to the rest of the world.

The total project cost is estimated between $80-90 million.

The engineer of record is InterMat LLC of Metairie, Louisiana. Environmental consultant Anchor QEA collaborated with the project team on permitting.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held last week. Bids are currently out for a general contractor and one will be selected in July.

Construction is expected to begin in the late third quarter of this year and will continue through the third quarter of 2026. The new facility is expected to begin operations late next year.

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Barry Cain, president of Tualatin-based Gramor Development, has spent more than 30 years transforming Portland-area neighborhoods. But at a former mill site in Vancouver, Wash., he is preparing to transform a community.

The Waterfront, a $1.5 billion development planned on 32 acres fronting the Columbia River, is expected to include approximately 1 million square feet of office space, 250,000 square feet of retail space, 3,300 residential units, a 180-bed boutique-style hotel and 10 acres of parks and trails. Some buildings are expected to open in 2016, but the total build-out may require 10 years.

Cain is a partner in Columbia Waterfront LLC, which is nearly ready to kick off the giant effort.

“After almost nine years, we’re finally at a point where we can tell potential users” what is ahead, he said. “We can seriously start marketing it.”

Interest has been strong, said Cain, noting that Columbia Waterfront has been working on a purchase agreement that would create a block for a hotel. Also, negotiations with several potential restaurant tenants are under way. Meanwhile, investors are being sought.

“We’re not going to build all the buildings,” he said. “It’s really more of a subdivision deal for us. We bought the land and will build two or three of the first five buildings. After that, I don’t know. Other developers will probably pick up the rest.”

Some hurdles remain, including a proposal for an oil terminal that would bring through the vicinity up to four additional trains per day. The Tesoro-Savage Vancouver Energy Distribution Terminal, at the Port of Vancouver USA, would handle daily up to 360,000 barrels of crude oil, which would then be shipped to refineries mostly on the West Coast.

The Washington State Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council is reviewing the Tesoro-Savage proposal; Gov. Jay Inslee‘s approval also is required before the project can move ahead. Vancouver City Council opposes the project, and Cain says that approval could lead to the Waterfront development – at least its residential portion – being downscaled.

“We own the property; we’re all in on this deal,” he said. “It’s not so much a matter of would we go ahead, but would it still be possible to do the things we were going to do?”

Construction of the main road connecting the development site and Columbia Street is slated to start this fall. Site connections to Esther and Grant streets are expected to be made by spring 2015, Cain said.

A train trestle that improved access just to the north of the project, already has been reconstructed, Cain said. The city of Vancouver, the state and federal government and the developer collectively paid $45 million for it, he said.

Another major improvement, the $18 million Waterfront Park, is in the permitting process; construction is anticipated to begin in 2015. The half-mile-long park will give Vancouver residents access to that stretch of the Columbia River for the first time in more than a century, said Jane Jacobsen, a Jacobsen Works principal who is involved in the fundraising effort. She also is working with the city and Vancouver, B.C.-based landscape architect PWL Partnership to ensure that the park connects to others along 18 miles of the waterfront and the city.

Stabilization of the shoreline that fronts the property also is scheduled for next year, Jacobsen said. The improvements will give the property and the city more of a “river-town feel,” she said.

“This whole development … will really help turn people’s attention to the water,” she said. “We are a waterfront community. Vancouver is here because of the Columbia River.”

Two years from now, the Waterfront is expected to be up and running with at least a few buildings constructed and the park in place, said project team member George Diamond, a principal broker with Real Estate Investment Group. He is talking to prospective market-rate and affordable housing developers as well as several high-end retailers and restaurateurs. Columbia Waterfront also is looking to sell blocks to other interested developers, he said.

Prices would start at $100 per square foot. By comparison, property in Portland’s Pearl District sells for about $300 per square foot and property in downtown Portland sells for about $250 per square foot, he said.

Diamond compared the development to Portland’s South Waterfront District, which is on a riverfront with links to parks and trails. Similarly, the Vancouver project will essentially expand the downtown and open up the riverfront, he said.

“You just don’t find 30-plus acres on the river,” he said. “It just doesn’t exist.”

The project has the potential to be transformative for Vancouver in the way that the removal of Harbor Drive in favor of a waterfront park was for Portland 40 years ago, said Kelly Love-Parker, CEO of the Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce.

“This can become the signature feature for downtown Vancouver,” she said. “I would say that we are a modern-day, beautiful city with every amenity. It would bring bodies into the downtown core.”

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Curtis Shuck, the director of economic development and facilities for the Port of Vancouver USA, pulled his SUV into a dirt field and pointed out the window.

“This here is the view that you’re getting to see for the first time in literally over 100 years,” he said.

He gestured toward a small dirt road that ran beneath a new train overpass. It doesn’t look like much now, he explained, but it will eventually connect downtown Vancouver, Wash., to the waterfront via Esther Street and open the doors to a $1.5 billion development project that is planning to begin in 2014.

Until recently, the railroad for a century had separated the city from its waterfront, and BNSF Railway Co. had been unwilling to sell the rights to the heavily trafficked rail. But then the port proposed to move the line as part of its West Vancouver Freight Access project – a $275 million effort featuring 21 separate projects to expand rail capacity from 16 linear miles of track to more than 45.

The Esther Street project freed up the land and let Gramor purchase the waterfront property, which Shuck said will someday look like Portland’s South Waterfront District. Crews finished that project in 2009, but the port has $60.5 million worth of work under way. And this week bidding will open for an $11.75 million project to expand the port’s business park by 58 acres; it’s expected to attract $100 million in private-sector investment.

Shuck drove over railroad tracks to a section of waterfront where construction crews are extending tracks beneath the existing BNSF mainline bridge. The $35 million new port rail access project received approximately $15 million in federal money because it will ultimately alleviate congestion on the mainline track.

The project – number 16 on a list of 21 – requires crews to build a new track 24.5 feet below the BNSF mainline bridge. That puts it seven feet below the high water mark of the Columbia River, so Hamilton Construction is building a sea wall to keep the water at bay.

“It’s actually going to be a fairly unique structure – one that you don’t see very often at all,” Shuck said. “In fact, this is really the first of its kind. So we call it the seventh wonder of the world, and affectionately refer to it as the ‘Trench.’ ”

The port operates on approximately 800 acres and has 600 more available. It has more than 50 tenants; 75 percent of their business comes by rail.

While the Port of Portland focuses on container shipments, the Port of Vancouver specializes in bulk products. For instance, it annually ships abroad more than half a million metric tons of scrap metal and as much as 4 million metric tons of grain – approximately 16 percent of the nation’s total wheat export.

Shuck maneuvered the SUV down a corridor bordered by mountains of scrap metal to the left and towering grain elevators to the right. A big challenge for the WVFA project has been acquisition of necessary rights of way. Next spring, the port will weave its rail line through an $85 million expansion that United Grain Corp. will complete this year. Also, several buildings in the way will be demolished.

“This is a grain elevator expansion in front of us and our rail line comes right through this building here too and then connects to this main rail yard. So we tried to hit just about every building we could,” he said in jest.

Shuck added that a mining company called BHP Billiton is preparing to convert a 164-acre port property into a $200 million potash facility.

Meanwhile, the port’s $60 million gateway overpass project is about 75 percent complete.

Despite all that work to improve its infrastructure, the port is at 99 percent occupancy and Shuck said it is turning companies away. The port hopes to change that via development of its Centennial Industrial Park.

In phase one, 58 acres will be subdivided into seven shovel-ready lots able to hold approximately 550,000 square feet of office, manufacturing, production and warehouse space. The port recently received $5.75 million for that work through the Jobs Now Act, which was passed by the state Legislature earlier this year. Approximately 500 family-wage jobs could be created through the project, according to the port.

Shuck has been working on the WVFA project since 2005. As he drove back into the port’s administrative office parking lot, he explained that simply securing permits required years of effort. The port now has the green light until 2027. There is still a long way to go, Shuck said, but progress is rewarding.

“We’ve been planning and engineering and acquiring (rights of way) for all that time,” he said. “So it’s nice to be starting construction.”

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The is halfway through its 10-year, $150 million freight access improvement project, and construction is set to hit its high point this summer.

“This is the place to be right now,” said Curtis Shuck, director of economic development and facilities at the port. “We are turning on the heat to get a bunch of projects out the door and completed right now.”

The West Vancouver Freight Access project is designed to reduce congestion on regional rail lines. The effort, which began in 2007 and will finish by 2017, involves 21 projects, hundreds of construction workers and freight trains chugging through jobsites every day.

Local contracting companies have had to adjust some of their practices to complete WVFA jobs, and those lessons may prove valuable this summer, when the port will seek bids for millions of dollars worth of work.

Vancouver, Wash.-based Rotschy Inc. in June will wrap up two jobs at the port, including a $6.5 million project that will increase access for grain trains. But project manager Hans Schmeusser said a WVFA project’s budget does not necessarily line up with its level of complexity.

Two years ago, the company completed a job at the port that cost more than twice the amount of the grain train project, but was less challenging.

“The $15 million contract was surprisingly quite a bit less complicated than the $6.5 million grain train that we’re nearing completion on,” Schmeusser said.

Because the grain train project is near the port’s center, it impacts many of the tenants and makes it more challenging to keep rail access open while crews are building new lines. When Rotschy workers completed the $15 million contract to build a new rail loop at Terminal 5, however, they were on the port’s outskirts, so coordination was simpler.

“It’s all kind of intertwined on this one; we’re right in the heart of the port,” Schmeusser said.

Work is also complicated because each port tenant has its own safety programs, according to Mike Robertson, project manager for Colf Construction. Only one tenant requires workers to wear eye protection, for instance, and certain areas of the port are more restrictive about where people can smoke cigarettes, so contractors working on multiple projects need to be especially vigilant, Robertson said.

The Vancouver-based company has done about $4 million worth of work on multiple sites at the port.

“You always need to be alert and aware of where you’re at,” Robertson said. “You’ve got the longshoremen doing their thing, the grain guys doing their thing, and then you’re entering construction zones within construction zones.”

Because of the port’s security measures, Robertson said it also can be tricky to get deliveries to the jobsite. After 9/11, the Coast Guard increased security at all U.S. ports, so in order to get into certain areas at the Port of Vancouver, people need to have a Transit Worker Identification Credential or an escort with one.

When 10 dump trucks delivering rock were delayed because of the TWIC requirements, Robertson realized it would be more efficient to have additional crew members go through the background check and certification process so they could also serve as escorts.

Much of the upcoming work at the port this year will be laying the groundwork for two major projects – an $80 million expansion planned by United Grain Corp. and a new, $300 million facility for international mining company BHP Billiton, which plans to ship fertilizer potash from a Canadian mine through the Port of Vancouver’s Terminal 5.

The port in early June will request bids for an approximately $8 million job to prepare Terminal 5 for BHP Billiton. Then, in late summer, the port will seek a contractor to relocate the bulk unloading facility; that effort has a $4 million budget for 2012 and will continue to be funded next year.

Construction is also expected to kick off on one of the WVFA’s signature projects: a new connection point to the BNSF Railway and Union Pacific main lines that will provide better access to major rail hubs in Houston and Chicago. Bids for the $7 million first phase of that project are also expected to be sought this summer.

“There’s literally a ton of work to get started on,” Shuck said.

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, an information technology solutions company based in Vancouver, Wash., has sub-leased a 23,024-square-foot industrial space at the Columbia Business Center in Vancouver.

HTG is growing and needs more space, according to Jason Johnson, associate broker for Norris & Stevens, who brokered the deal along with ‘ Scott Finney.

“They’re going after some big accounts and that was the reason, and they’re just a growing company and they’ve been picking up more contracts,” said Johnson said.

Kermit Macaulay, president and CEO of HTG, said he doesn’t want to comment on the company’s plans for the space now but said the company will announce them in the next two weeks.

Johnson did not disclose the financial terms of the lease, but he said HTG will sub-lease the space – located at 2801 S.E. Columbia Way, Ste. 110, Bldg. 31 – from the current tenant, Amcor Packaging Distribution/Mohr Partners Inc.

Johnson said Amcor acquired the lease through the acquisition of a smaller company and is not currently using the space. That lease expires in four years, and at that time Johnson said HTG will likely need to negotiate a new agreement with the building’s owner.

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The Vancouver, British Columbia-based Sapa Extrusions, one of the world’s leaders in aluminum profile manufacturing, has its sights set on the Pacific Northwest’s other Vancouver.

Sapa has signed a lease with the Port of Vancouver USA for a 142,800-square-foot building at 2001 Kotobuki Way in Vancouver, Wash. The 15-year lease, with two five-year options to extend, enables the company to relocate one of its Vancouver, British Columbia plants and 100 family-wage jobs to the Port of Vancouver USA.

Sapa manufactures aluminum profiles that can be used in machines to frame buildings or to frame automobiles. The company has 16 plants in North America, including one in Portland. The Vancouver plant will be the company’s first in the state of Washington.

The vacant building that Sapa will move into was most recently occupied by the electronics manufacturer Panasonic, which closed its doors in 2008.

Sapa will invest approximately $9.5 million into the facility over the next year. The port will also assist financially, providing $500,000 in matching funds to help complete the improvements, as well as securing an $800,000 public facility improvements loan from the Washington State Community Economic Development Revitalization Board to go toward the project.

The company plans to be operational at the port by early September.

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The Eugene-based Farwest Steel has officially closed on the purchase of a 20-acre industrial tract at the Port of Vancouver USA.

Farwest Steel Corporation – which fabricates, processes and distributes steel – purchased the land from the port for $5.1 million. The deal was first announced in August of last year, but had to go through a lengthy public process to receive approval because it was public land being sold to a private company.

The company plans to spend $40 million in order to build a new manufacturing facility on the lot, consolidating operations at several other facilities in Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho and Utah. Construction on the new facility is slated to begin in July, and the facility should be operational by 2012.

Approximately 100 jobs will relocate to the port site, while 125 new jobs are expected to be added. Average annual salary for the jobs will be $40,000.

Port of Vancouver Commission President Brian Wolfe said selling property isn’t something the port usually does. But in this case it will result in good-paying jobs for Clark County residents, he said.

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The Port of Vancouver USA has been awarded $15 million from the federal government to help provide high-speed rail service.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced today the port would receive the money to be put toward its $150 million West Vancouver Freight Access project. The money is part of a much larger $2.02 billion grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Transportation for 22 high-speed passenger rail projects in 15 states around the country.

The West Vancouver Freight Access project is a multi-year project meant to improve movement of freight through the port and reduce congestion on the regional rail system. The project is expected to be completed by 2017, potentially spurring $400 million in rail related private-sector investment and creating up to 2,000 new permanent jobs.

The USDOT funding will be specifically used in the construction of a rail access point at the east end of the port that is separate from the mainline, according to a release on the announcement. The project is expected to reduce delay on the freight and passenger mainline by up to 40 percent while tripling the port’s rail volume. Construction on the project, which is expected to cost $38 million, will start in April of 2013 and is slated for completion in early 2016, the release said.

Oregon, for its part, was awarded $1.5 million for analysis of adding overnight parking for passenger trains at the Eugene Station. Having separate “stub tracks” to store passenger trains at night would allow for more capacity for passenger and freight service.

The $2.02 billion was originally meant to go to Florida as part of a $2.4 billion grant to help link Orlando International Airport to Tampa, Fla., but was rejected by Florida Gov. Rick Scott. About $800 million went to Northeastern United States to help increase rail speed from 135 to 169 mph. Another $404.1 million went to high-speed rail service between Detroit and Chicago, as well as rail upgrades between Chicago and St. Louis.

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The Port of Vancouver‘s Board of Commissioners has given final approval for demolition of three buildings at Terminal 2 to make way for the planned West Vancouver Freight Access rail project.

Removal of the buildings – a warehouse, port office and restroom facility – will allow for expansion of a grain elevator at the site, and make room for the overall $137 million WVFA project, officials said.

The WVFA project is scheduled for completion in 2017. The goal is to reduce congestion on the regional rail system by up to 40 percent by broadening the port’s ability to export grain.

The grain terminal, operated by United Grain Corporation, exports about three million tons of wheat annually. The company plans to spend $72 million on the expansion over the next several years, according to Tony Flagg, company president.

The decision to expand in part is because of the recent deepening of the Columbia River channel from 40 to 43 feet so that ships that dock at the terminal can carry an additional 7,200 tons of grain, Flagg said. The company expects to nearly double its current grain exports.

The buildings will be demolished sometime during the first quarter of 2011.

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More than $27 million has been awarded for transportation improvement and planning projects in Oregon and Southwest Washington from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Two freight projects, one community plan and a project to install electric vehicle chargers along Interstate 5 received the TIGER II money, which is part of the federal stimulus act.

The largest award, $13.57 million, went to the Oregon International Port of Coos Bay to rehabilitate tracks and improve the operating condition for the Coos Bay Rail Line. Martin Callery, the port’s chief commercial officer, said deferred maintenance along the line led CorpRail to embaro its use in 2007. The line has been closed ever since. The port has been slowly gathering money for repairs and expects to re-open it as a low-speed rail line in the second quarter of 2011, Callery said. The Tiger II grant money will allow the port to then upgrade the lien to handle higher-speed rail by the end of 2012.

The West Vancouver Freight Access project, a $137 million effort to fix rail congestion at the Port of Vancouver, received a $10 million grant. That money will be used to relocate facilities within the Port’s property to make new entryways into port terminals and create more storage for trains, among other improvements.

The Oregon Department of Transportation will install up to 42 direct-current, fast-charge stations for electric vehicles along Interstate 5 with its $2 million TIGER II grant.

In addition to the TIGER II money for capital improvement projects, $1.5 million in grant money was awarded to a planning project in Washington County. The Aloha-Reedsville Livable Community Plan will investigate the economic and physical decline of the areas between Beaverton and Hillsboro as well as create plans for land use, street improvements and bike and pedestrian projects.

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