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Army to build training site in Orchards

By Cami Joner
Published: November 24, 2009, 12:00am

$28 million center will open in 2011 for up to1,000 soldiers

The U.S. Army expects to build a $28 million training center starting next year in Orchards, adjacent to a site long earmarked for business park development.

The 18.5-acre tract will become a training center for the Army Reserve and Washington Army National Guard. It replaces earlier plans to put such a complex along state Highway 14, near Columbia House Boulevard. The Orchards site, south of Northeast 165th Street and east of 147th Avenue, will take up about half of the 36-acre property, long labeled as the Birtcher Business Center.

Scheduled to open in 2011, the Army’s three-building Orchards campus will be a weekend training base for between 900 and 1,000 soldiers who now report to the Vancouver Barracks.

The relocation is part of the Army’s 2005 base closure decision for Vancouver Barracks, deeded to the city this year. The Army already has vacated the west barracks section on the west side of Fort Vancouver Way.

All units that remain at the Vancouver Barracks will transfer to the new center. Called an Armed Forces Reserve Center, the complex is one of several being developed throughout the country for combined armed forces units of the Army, Navy, and Marines. In Vancouver’s case, Army units will train at the center, said Scott McKean, base transition coordinator for the Army Reserve in the Northwest region.

“There will be classrooms, a distance learning center, a weapons simulator and a physical fitness room,” McKean said.

The development also will have a vehicle maintenance building, a storage and supply building, a fenced lot for military rigs and parking for 276 vehicles to accommodate National Guard personnel, who train on weekends.

“The Army cannot operate without the National Guard and Reserve being part of their operations,” McKean said.

The units provide combat and service support in the areas of medical and engineering assistance and in the transporting of ammunition, cargo and fuel.

About 1 acre of the Orchards campus will be reserved for a combat support hospital, to be set up for training, McKean said.

Spokane-based Garco Construction Inc. has been selected as the general contractor to build the project.

“We’re in the design phase right now,” McKean said.

The Army purchased the site in October from the Francis N. Keller (family) Trust, which has owned the property since 1963 as part of 220 acres east of Interstate 205 on Fourth Plain Boulevard.

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California-based Birtcher Development Group announced in 1998 that it was negotiating to buy the entire site and develop 1.8 million square feet of office and light industrial space.

The company recently issued plans to develop a three-building office and industrial project on the site’s remaining 18 acres, said Alisa Pyszka, the city of Vancouver business development manager.

“They still control the development,” she said.

However, Birtcher won’t start construction without an interested tenant’s commitment, said Jim Edwards, senior vice president of Birtcher Development’s Portland office.

“A lot of businesses are not sure what they are going to do going forward. We just wanted to register our plans with the city,” Edwards said.

In the meantime, parts of the original development tract have been sold off for a mix of projects. In 2004, Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. paid $9.9 million for a 22.5-acre tract on the west side of the property. Plans to develop a brand-name Walmart SuperCenter store there have long been on hold.

McKean said the Army Reserve spent several years looking for a suitable site for the training center.

Cami Joner: 360-735-4532 or cami.joner@columbian.com.

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