Port of Vancouver set to sell land for $873,000

Port of Vancouver commissioners on Tuesday authorized CEO Julianna Marler to complete a land sale to a construction company that expects to grow from 30 employees to 75 at its new home.

Fisher Construction Group of Burlington is expected to pay $873,000 for 2.28 acres of port-owned land in Centennial Industrial Park at Northwest 32nd Avenue and 38th Circle. The company and port signed a letter of intent last December and Tuesday’s action was the next step toward likely construction later this year.

Fisher plans to build a 24,000-square-foot office building and 7,500-square-foot warehouse at the Centennial site to house its growing Clark County operations. The project, about a half-mile north of the port’s headquarters, is expected to be valued at $3.5 million.

Dan Powers, Fisher’s president and chief executive, attended Tuesday’s meeting but did not speak.

In January, he told The Columbian, “It seems like it has a lot of growth opportunity. We’re excited to get ourselves down there.”

Fisher was founded in the 1970s as a Washington family home-building company and has expanded into a commercial and industrial design-build company with projects in many states. Fisher has its headquarters in Burlington and satellite offices in Vancouver and Spokane.

Fisher specializes in the design and construction of cold storage warehousing and food processing facilities. It counts Firestone Pacific Foods of Vancouver among its customers. The company had an estimated $400 million in sales in 2018.