A large property that once was to become an office park called Corporate Woods has changed hands with the land’s purchase in July by a major Portland housing and commercial developer.
Weston Investment Co., bought the nearly 29 acre site for an undisclosed amount, owner Joe Weston confirmed.
Weston purchased the property July 9 from F.I.G. Holding Company, a property management subsidiary of the long-time owner Farmers Insurance Group, according to county property records. Weston confirmed that his company’s acquisition of the vacant land at Northeast 51st Circle and Northeast 112th Avenue but did not disclose the purchase price. Farmers Insurance also would not disclose any details of the transaction. Dave Brown of Columbia Commercial Properties, who represented both parties, also would not comment.
Weston said he plans to sell, rather than develop, the property. “We’re just going to clean up the area and get all of those trucks off 51st (Circle),” Weston said, referring to the tractor trailers that use the street as a parking area. “Then we’ll list the property for sale.”
Farmers had owned the property since 1979, when the company built a regional headquarters office on adjoining acreage at state Route 500 and Northeast 112th. Farmers closed the office in the late 1990s and sold that building to Washington state for its regional Department of Transportation and State Patrol offices.
Weston said his company will list the property as one parcel instead of breaking it up. Part of the property could be platted for residential development, he said, but added that nothing other than cleaning up the area will be happening any time soon.
“There’s no immediate, huge intent to do anything different,” he said.
The centrally-located site has long attracted interest as a site for a large-scale commercial or mixed-use development. The area is zoned mostly commercial with some area for multi-family residential and one single family parcel, said Andrew Reule, senior planner for the city of Vancouver.
One reason the property may have been slow to develop because of the required setbacks set in place to protect the banks of the nearby Burnt Bridge Creek, Reule said. Current city requirements include a 100-foot to 175-foot-wide buffer between the stream and the development, unless the developer invests in mitigation projects to plant or restore stream habitat.
Previous plans
A 1980 plan for Corporate Woods included seven office buildings and nine apartment buildings near the edge of the creek. Plans submitted in 2011 featured just three office buildings on the west side of the site, parking spaces for 575 vehicles, and a wide swath of land in between the development and Burnt Bridge Creek.
The updated 2011 plan, which won preliminary approval from the city, would have vacated the easternmost loop of Northeast 51st Circle, but allowed about the same amount of office space as the 1980 plan. Buildings in the 2011 plan totaled 331,400 square feet in two four-story buildings and one five-story building, while the original plan called for 325,408 square feet of offices. But the original plan’s 110 apartment units were not included in the 2011 plan.
Even with the large swath of empty property along Northeast 51st Circle, there are some commercial buildings in the area. The Gifford Pinchot National Forest has its headquarters in Northeast 51st Avenue, but it plans to move its operations to the Vancouver Barracks next year. The Washington State Department of Transportation has its southwest regional office on 51st Avenue, and Farmer’s Insurance has a claims office there.
