Ridgefield port buys land near I-5
14-acre site will be developed when market recovers
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Update
• Previously: In 2007, the Port of Ridgefield sold the last of its real estate near the Interstate 5 and Pioneer Street Junction.
• What’s new: Port commissioners voted unanimously Wednesday to buy a 13.7-acre site near the junction for future development.
• What’s next: Port officials expect the sale to close later this month.
Port of Ridgefield Commissioners voted unanimously Wednesday to purchase 13.7-acres west of Interstate 5 to add to the port’s property holdings.
The site, on the southeast quadrant of Pioneer Street and South 45th Avenue, is less than one mile from I-5 and a $28 million interchange project now under construction there. The port’s three-member commission voted to pay $638,000 for the land, formerly part of a 320-acre parcel proposed as a business park development in 2007.
“It will be something we hold onto and develop when the market picks up,” said Randy Mueller, the port’s business development director.
Idaho-based Vision Land Management owned the site before defaulting on its loan with the now-defunct Bank of Clark County. The land was seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as part of a bundle of failed bank assets.
Vancouver developer Elie Kassab, who owns an adjacent, 17-acre site, had been in the process of purchasing the 13.7-acre site from the FDIC. He will be replaced by the port as purchaser, Kassab said.
“I know the port will do the right thing by that piece of land,” said Kassab, who expects to develop a 12-plex cinema complex on his land tract, southeast of Pioneer Street and 45th Avenue.
The city recently transformed the intersection into a traffic roundabout.
Kassab expects to break ground in mid 2011, depending on whether bank financing is available.
The theater and retail project will cost between $15 million and $20 million to develop.
Port Executive Director Brent Grening said he expects the port will close the latest transaction this month. The site is near a 17-acre parcel recently purchased by the city of Ridgefield. That site, earmarked for a community park, had been forfeited to the FDIC as well.
Mueller said the land the port is purchasing would be its only real estate asset outside of its core Lake River-front acreage, a 40-acre industrial cleanup site.
In 2007, the port sold a 75-acre tract northeast of the I-5 Junction to Southwest Washington Medical Center. The medical center agreed to pay $17.8 million for the site through a 10-year purchase agreement.
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