If everything goes according to plan, later this year a new Crestline Elementary School will stand as more than simply a place of learning.
Scheduled to open in September, the 53,000-square-foot building in southeast Vancouver reflects a rejuvenated city that is awash in construction projects. That seems fitting for a building that will replace the Crestline Elementary that burned to the ground in February 2013 — a bit of a phoenix-like act that reflects the slow-but-encouraging economic resurgence of the area.
Several large construction projects are scheduled to pop up during 2014:
• The Salmon Creek Interchange project, costing $133 million, will build a new bridge carrying Northeast 139th Street over the convergence of Interstate 5 and Interstate 205. It also will add one lane in both directions of I-5 between 139th and 179th streets, and add a lane on the northbound I-205 offramp to Northeast 134th.
• A five-story, 150,000-square-foot office tower is being added to the Camas campus of Fisher Investments.
• A TownePlace Suites by Marriott extended-stay hotel is going up on Southeast Mill Plain Boulevard, and construction will begin this year on a Hampton Inn & Suites at Mill Plain and 136th Avenue.
• A Wal-Mart Supercenter will open in Battle Ground, and a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market is scheduled for the corner of Fourth Plain and Grand in Vancouver.
Those are just some of the many construction projects in the county. “The retailers have some good expansion plans going on,” Vancouver developer Mike Jenkins told Columbian reporter Cami Joner. “You saw the retailers go dormant for a few years, and now they’re rolling into full expansion mode.” In 2013, contractors took out construction permits worth a combined value of nearly $250 million in Vancouver and unincorporated Clark County. That was a 72 percent increase over 2012, when $144.2 million worth of commercial construction permits were filed.
Yet while the construction projects are a good sign for the county, there is plenty of work remaining if the economy is going to fully recover. Any strong economic foundation must be built upon a variety of big businesses and small, of manufacturing and retail, of established companies and creative startups. “We really need to be more thoughtful and creative to get those smaller companies here,” said Ryan Hurley of Hurley Development in downtown Vancouver.
Which recalls a series The Columbian ran in 2004 — “Funk Factor” — about the importance of a creative economy. As the newspaper reported at the time, “National studies show jobs are created and economies stimulated by supporting the arts and a creative workforce.” That creativity has been evident over the past three decades in Seattle, where the city’s culture helped create an ethos that spawned Microsoft, Amazon and Starbucks. Here, Hurley says, an up-and-coming craft beer industry and culinary culture can help spur economic growth — albeit on a smaller scale.
Such visions of economic growth have been stymied over the past five years, as the economy was thrust into survival mode. But as the clouds begin to part, however so slightly, on the darkness that has hovered over businesses, it is time to start thinking of sunnier days. The construction taking place is one ray of sunshine. Hopefully, small businesses, manufacturing and hip, creative endeavors will soon follow.
