| Restaurant, WinCo and more planned in Brush Prairie |
Brush Prairie residents could have their long-awaited sit-down restaurant by early summer 2009 at the former site of Bowyer’s Par 3 golf course, as part of a planned 10-building retail development anchored by Clark County’s fourth WinCo Foods.
Bowyer Marketplace, northwest of Northeast 119th Street at Northeast 117th Avenue (state Highway 503), would be the first major retail center south of Battle Ground.
Two drive-through fast-food outlets, two banks and four more buildings with shops would join WinCo and the restaurant on roughly 19 acres that have stood vacant since Killian Pacific bought and cleared the site in February 2006.
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| Former bus mall to become plaza - for a while |
The streets that once housed C-Tran's downtown bus mall, pictured above, are being transformed into an urban plaza by Vancouver's Downtown Association. Using funds collected from private donors and a state grant program, the design will include a water feature, mural and planter boxes. Organizers intend to finish construction by the end of summer. But in a world where nothing is forever, the expiration date on this work is sooner than you might expect. Get the full details in Friday's Columbian. |
| A bright idea: Trade in your light bulbs |
When compact fluorescent light bulbs burn out, Clark County residents can now trade in the energy-saving light sources for free replacement CFLs at any of Clark Public Utilities' offices, the utility announced today. CFLs last 10 times as long as the equivalent incandescent bulbs and use about a quarter of the energy. CFLs must be recycled, however, to keep the mercury they contain from entering the environment. Where to trade in a CFL:
- 1200 Fort Vancouver Way, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays.
- 8600 N.E. 117th Ave., 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays.
- 100 Columbia Way, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.
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| Comedy clubs' conflict leaves nobody laughing |
Sometimes running a comedy club is no laughing matter, features reporter May Ann Albright today writes in a story with implications for a Vancouver business.
A spat with a Portland rival is threatening the entertainment lineup at Clark County’s only designated comedy club just as it is expanding in downtown Vancouver. Caught in the crossfire between Vancouver’s Laughs and Lyrics and Portland’s Harvey’s Comedy Club are local stand-up comedians who are being asked to choose between the two. Read more.
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| Housing slowdown hampers Brush Prarie growth plans |
As so many people did in the last few years, 12 developers of land near Prairie High School placed a big bet in early 2007 that the housing boom would stay in bloom.They bet wrong. Now there’s a chance that, under the terms of their complex deal with Clark County to pay for roads in the area, all the projects could stall for months or even years. Read more.
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| Smak down at plastics startup |
Smak Plastics, a Vancouver manufacturing startup, plans to increase staff from 11 employees to 25 over the next three years as its business grows. Smak Plastics uses rotating machinery fitted with large molds to manufacture such items as playground slides, trash cans and canoes.
"We're ambitious as heck," said Jonathan Smalley, (above left), the company's president. Smalley and his neighbor, Erick Kunz (above right) launched the company with a $500,000 investment. The company hosted an open house this week in its new 25,000-square-foot space at Olin Business Park, 9116 N.E. 130th Ave. Read more in Thursday's Columbian business section. |
| No Blue Cross health insurance rate hikes planned in Clark County |
| Rate increases announced for individual policy-holders of Regence BlueCross-Blue Shield of Oregon this week will not be felt by Clark County clients. Local residents already had their rates increased on March 1, when Regence raised premium rates by an average of 32.4 percent and as much as 55 percent here. Around 10,000 Clark County policy-holders were affected by that increase, but won’t see additional increases for now, said a Regence spokeswoman on Wednesday. |
| Clark County's population now estimated at 424,200 |
| Clark County's once sizzling growth rate appears to have cooled some. The population here climbed 2.2 percent over a 12-month period, the third smallest percentage increase in the past 10 years, according to figures released today by the Washington Office of Financial Management. Clark County had 424,200 residents as of April 1, according to the figures. Battle Ground added 470 people in a year, bringing its population to 16,710. With 10 more people than Camas, Battle Ground is now the county's second biggest city. |
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Each Wednesday I pull together links from around the Web, geared towards an audience of Clark County businesses, working people, and anyone who cares about money. Here's this week's selection:
Camas Washougal Watch asks how a $10 per 3,900 square foot property tax to fund a storm water management program will affect businesses and other property owners.
Oregon Business Magazine's look at the "10 Coolest Tech Startups You've Never Heard Of" includes a Vancouver company, Iterasi, which you should have heard of by now if you're reading this blog.
Xiotech Corp. announced that it has sold a major storage system to Forbes Energy Services. Headquartered in Minnesota, Xiotech has about 50 programmers at a small office in Vancouver.
Here's a look at the Port of Camas-Washougal's efforts to develop a 430-acre industrial park on the banks of the Columbia River, from the Portland Business Journal.
Washington State University Vancouver will offer a series of short free classes to adults during the the first week of August, covering landscaping, computer programming, business finance and more.
In 2004 the Wall Street Journal's economic forecast panel said by an overwhelming margin that high oil prices would trigger a recession if they hit $80 a barrel, Businomics blogger (and Portland economist) Bill Conerly tells us. Oil's around $140, last I checked.
Here's a look at what's happening in mobile advertising, from Andrew Deal, of Vancouver-based CelleCast.
The first logs rolled through Weyerhaeuser Co.’s new consolidated sawmill in Longview on Monday, marking a new era for the company’s lumber production in Cowlitz County, reports The Daily News.
At a company briefing in San Francisco on Tuesday, Intel vice president Pat Gelsinger said the company plans to begin using 450 millimeter silicon wafers in 2012, reports the Silicon Forest blog. Intel is rolling out a new frontier in chip manufacturing as Vancouver-based SEH America, an Intel supplier, works to finish its massive expansion to 300 millimeter wafers - which were the cutting edge until the bigger wafers came along.
-- Courtney Sherwood
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| Country's largest private independent shipper buys Vancouver trucking biz |
| American Freight Systems Inc., a Vancouver-based trucking company, has been sold to RoadLink, the country’s largest private independent shipping business. Terms of the deal were not disclosed John Rogers formed American Freight Systems in 1998 and built it into a fleet of 55 company-owned trucks and 16 independent contractors that move containers through the ports of Seattle, Tacoma and Portland. This is the third West Coast trucking company purchased by Atlanta-based RoadLink, which wants to expand shipping traffic from the Asian-Pacific region. |
| Bid for Red Lion could affect Quay |
An unsolicited bid from a Seattle investment firm to buy Red Lion Hotels Corp. renews speculation that the Quay in downtown Vancouver could become part of a larger riverfront redevelopment. Columbia Pacific Opportunity Fund, a partner of Columbia Pacific Advisors, sent Don Barbieri, chairman of Red Lion’s board, a letter Friday offering to pay $9.50 a share for the company’s outstanding stock, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Read more.
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| Murals may be felled by rail development |
Realignment of BNSF Railway’s main east-west rail line, threatens to alter a 100-year-old wall in downtown Vancouver that honors veterans of conflicts from the Civil War to Vietnam. Called the Remembrance Wall, the structure's war-themed paintings arose from a 2005 effort by the Clark County Mural Society, a collection of volunteers determined to create 100 downtown murals as a means to drive tourism dollars to the area. The fate of the murals has become something of a political hot potato. Read more.
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| Battle Ground's population now tops Camas' |
Clark County's once sizzling growth rate appears to have cooled some. The population here climbed 2.2 percent over a 12-month period, the third smallest percentage increase in the past 10 years, according to figures released this week by the Washington Office of Financial Management. Clark County had 424,200 residents as of April 1, according to the figures. Battle Ground added 470 people in a year, bringing its population to 16,710. With 10 more people than Camas, Battle Ground is now the county's second biggest city. We'll have a deeper look in Thursday's Columbian, or you can navigate the data for yourself.
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| Physicians group to close Salmon Creek clinic |
| Family Physicians Group will close its Salmon Creek clinic Aug. 29 after losing seven primary-care providers there in the past 18 months, reports Paul Craig. Operations will be consolidated with the group’s Fisher’s Landing clinic at 16811 S.E. McGillivray Blvd. Even so, some Salmon Creek patients may have to look elsewhere for a new provider, said a group administrator. Read more. |
| Northwest Pipe Co. expands reach in energy sector |
Weeks after announcing an expansion in Houston to get closer to Texas’ energy sector, Vancouver-based Northwest Pipe Co. has received its largest-ever single order for energy products. A $10.6 million deal with an oil and natural gas contractor in Houston calls for pipe that will largely be used in the U.S., with about a third of the order eventually bound for Ghana.
The new Houston manufacturing line is expected to start up in 2009, so Northwest Pipe will produce this order in Atchison, Kan., for shipment late this year. |
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