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In case you missed them, here are some of the top stories of the weekend:
With concrete trucks and cranes converging on the Waterfront Vancouver project, developments are inching along for the Port of Vancouver’s own waterfront development.
The port awaits an official recommendation on its Terminal 1 master plan, a 10.37-acre property near the former Red Lion Hotel Vancouver at the Quay.
Port officials met Thursday with land use hearings examiner Sharon Rice, who reviews similar projects for cities and counties throughout the state of Washington. Rice must issue a recommendation before the Vancouver City Council can vote on the project and development can begin.
The recommendation is due May 18. If recommended, the city council could hear the project in June. Port officials said Friday they are expecting a positive outcome.
“It went well, we appreciated the opportunity to talk with the hearings examiner, and this is part of the process,” said port spokeswoman Abbi Russell. “We do expect to hear a recommendation from the examiner and we look forward to that.”
Similar to the Waterfront Vancouver, Terminal 1 imagines a mix of residential, office, retail and restaurants. The property shows four developable blocks bisected by Columbia Way, building up to 355 residential units, 62,000 square feet of retail and 200,000 square feet for office space.
Read the full story: Port of Vancouver Terminal 1 project is inching along
It wasn’t that long ago that Julian Rivas was staring out a tiny window of a solitary confinement cell, his home for more than two years, and looking at a bleak, empty field.
On Saturday afternoon, he stood on a stage and looked out into the sea of black robes worn by his fellow graduating class of Washington State University Vancouver as he accepted the Chancellor’s Award for Student Achievement.
Rivas, 29, joined a record number of 1,014 graduates from the Salmon Creek campus. That number includes 28 doctoral candidates, 110 master’s candidates and 876 bachelor’s candidates.
From a young age, Rivas was in and out of detention centers and later, prison. A lot of people around him were serving life sentences, but he knew he had another shot. And before he lost everyone he loved, he decided he would change. The day he was released from his last stint in prison, he bought a one-way ticket out of California to Longview.
Graduation day, he said, was surreal. His family was in the audience.
“My family is like how did you go from that place to this place in five years?” he said.
Read the full story: WSUV sets record number for graduates
People beelined for Mod Pizza on one of April’s rare sunny days. Like an efficient factory, they seemed to enter just as someone else freighted a pizza box out the back door.
“They’ve been killing it,” said Mark Osborne, a board member of the Vancouver developer C.E. John. Meanwhile, across the street from the pizza place’s patio, construction crews went to work building more retail space.
The pizza place’s busy afternoon was a welcome sign for Osborne and C.E. John. The development company recently pumped close to $22 million into its Hazel Dell Marketplace shopping center, which it co-owns with Hummelt Development of Wilsonville, Ore., to improve facades, remodeling existing spaces and adding about 50,000 square feet of new space.
Osborne, who lives nearby, said the area had been in dire need of more places to eat and shop. The center, north of 78th Street and west of Interstate 5, is now positioning itself to be the prime option for the relatively affluent residents of Lake Shore and Felida.
“The location really is an A-plus,” Osborne said.
The shopping center’s expansion runs counter to the national trend. Malls and large anchor tenants have faced uncertain times in the shadow of online retailers. Led by Seattle-based retail giant Amazon, e-commerce has taken huge bites from brick-and-mortar stores around the country.
Read the full story: Hazel Dell Marketplace building on success
From the shelves bursting with books to the brightly colored decorations adorning every wall, the kindergarten classrooms at Fruit Valley Community Learning Center and Prune Hill Elementary School are temples of early learning.
At each school, teachers coach smiling students through colors, words, letters, numbers and shapes, setting the foundation for later learning these students will need to succeed in adulthood.
A visitor to these two schools in Vancouver Public Schools and the Camas School District would be hard-pressed to detect differences between the young learners. But data collected early in the school year shows these students began their school careers at opposite ends of a kindergarten readiness spectrum. Whether students come into school ready to learn, even from kindergarten, can mean the difference between a student who graduates from high school and one who faces significant barriers throughout their education and other areas of their lives.
Fruit Valley and Prune Hill elementary schools are respectively the county’s lowest- and highest-ranked schools by Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills standards. The WaKIDS program measures whether children enter school with the foundational skills needed to succeed in class.
Districts have been rolling out the state program, which also emphasizes support for families and improved collaboration between elementary schools and preschools, since the 2010-2011 school year with the launch of full-day kindergarten. This year marked the first time all of Clark County’s school districts are participating in WaKIDS.
Read the full story: Readin’, writin’ and readiness
Reading clubs get together so people can talk about books.
Moms arrange outings so their kids can run around a playground.
Other gatherings can mean rinsing mud from squinting eyes, launching a person several feet into the air and shaking the hand of the bearded stranger who just bloodied your nose. OK, some of those activities could conceivably be associated with a book group or a play date, but they’re more likely to be part of a rugby match.
Meanwhile, the social factors of those groups — hanging out with people you have something in common with — are also part of rugby. (When you think about it, a rugby schedule is pretty much a series of play dates.)
“My favorite thing about rugby is actually the brotherhood and the camaraderie,” said Brian Thorp, an organizer of the Clark County Chiefs.
The roster of the men’s club, which recently wrapped up its season, includes people who started playing rugby in high school, or played in college. Some are former prep football players who haven’t put on pads and helmets since high school.
Rugby is a chance to keep playing a contact sport, and maybe even enjoy some expanded opportunities.
Read the full story: There will be mud — and probably blood, too
Skye Troy is still learning to talk about the hardest times in her life.
Being kicked out of school for doing drugs, and later arrested for stealing credit cards. Losing weight until she was all of 95 pounds, and losing her hair.
The 10 days in rehab consumed by cold sweats and chills.
“Growing up, I had to overcome so many obstacles,” she said.
Now 22 and clean for six years, Troy will celebrate the completion of another major milestone: college graduation.
The student body president will speak at today’s Washington State University Vancouver commencement ceremony, where 1,014 students will receive their diplomas. That’s a record for the Salmon Creek campus, with 28 doctoral candidates, 110 master’s candidates and 876 bachelor’s candidates graduating.
Troy will graduate with a degree in public affairs, and hopes to go to work as a government relations liaison in the fields of social justice, economic equality and women’s rights. She’s passionate for social reform at the local level, drawing from her own experience growing up in the rural Oklahoma city of Owasso to drive her.
Read the full story: WSUV student body president defeats addiction, earns bachelor’s
