Dale and Karol Cushenbery counted themselves lucky when they recently closed the purchase of their new home in Ridgefield.
The retired couple moved in last week to their custom-built house in Pioneer Canyon, the city’s largest subdivision. Not only did they beat other buyers looking at the in-demand property nestled between a wetland and a narrow stretch of woodland, they felt it was just the right time to settle down in the small but fast-growing city.
When the housing market collapsed, homebuilding nearly came to a halt in Ridgefield. But the city was one of the first in the state to see a rebirth of construction activity, with an uptick in building permits for new homes in 2012.
Now, seven years after the start of the Great Recession, Ridgefield is showing signs of a healthier and stronger recovery than the rest of Clark County, with more developable land than the other small cities and faster population growth. With a number of major infrastructure projects underway and an aggressive marketing campaign to draw in new businesses and homeowners, community leaders and residents believe the city is poised for a boom.
Like many other new homeowners in Ridgefield, that hopeful outlook was a big part of what attracted the Cushenberys to the city.
“This place is lively, it’s happening, it’s up and coming,” Dale Cushenbery said. “I just felt like six months ago, we needed to get into Ridgefield now, because someday it’s going to be like Beaverton, Ore., or West Linn.”
In terms of a population comparison, Beaverton may be a stretch, but the latter could be spot on. With an estimated population of a little more than 6,000 now and the second-fastest growth rate in the state this year at 8.8 percent, Ridgefield is projected to more than quadruple in size in the next decade.
Ready to grow
City Manager Steve Stuart touches on a number of trends to explain why the city is growing so fast.
“Ridgefield is one of the best spots for land that is ready to proceed to development,” Stuart said.
He points to a 2011 land inventory study by the Columbia River Economic Development Council that found Ridgefield had 13 sites that could be developed in the following three years. Ridgefield was second only to Vancouver in the ranking, and Washougal and Camas had only about half as many developable sites.
In 2011, Ridgefield had nearly as many sites as Vancouver that were ready to develop within 18 months, according to the study. Last year, Ridgefield issued 435 building permits, the most since 2007, and Stuart expects the number this year to at least come close to that mark.
As of last month, the city had seven construction projects underway, including three new subdivisions. Several other projects are also under review, waiting to get started soon.
“The readiness to proceed, a lot of it has to do with the infrastructure,” Stuart said.
Ridgefield’s new Interstate 5 interchange was built to serve the area’s growing industrial transportation needs for 50 years, Stuart said. This summer, crews are busy working on several other big projects around the city: installing a new pipeline under Pioneer Street that runs out to Interstate 5, finishing up construction on a nearby park and ride, and building the first phase of a railway overpass that will connect the waterfront to downtown.
The pipeline, part of the Discovery Corridor Wastewater Transmission System, will connect to the Salmon Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant. Construction is projected to wrap up by 2016, and provide service to the growing industrial area and expand the city’s wastewater treatment capacity.
Several companies have started or completed construction on new distribution centers or offices near the junction this summer, Mayor Ron Onslow said. Altogether, they will bring a few hundred new jobs to the city.
Just north of the Pioneer Street/I-5 junction, big projects are in the works with a new Clark College campus and PeaceHealth facility. In May, Clark College acquired 59 acres at Boschma Farms, and the campus could begin with one building as soon as 2020. It has the potential to expand to as many as six buildings later on.
PeaceHealth owns a 75-acre site nearby. Plans for the property remain unclear, Onslow said, but officials are eager about the higher-paying jobs it would bring to the city.
Meanwhile, the Port of Ridgefield continues to market long-term commercial development of the city’s waterfront along Lake River at Millers’ Landing. The cleanup work on what used to be a heavily contaminated industrial site is nearing an end, and the city envisions the property eventually becoming a lively extension of downtown.
For now, income levels are already on the rise in Ridgefield. In 2009, the city had a median household income of about $69,000 a year, lagging behind Camas and La Center, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But since then, Ridgefield’s median household income has increased more than any other Clark County city and far surpassed the state and county.
The most recent available data from 2012 shows Ridgefield having the highest median household income in the county at a little more than $86,000 a year.
Housing market
There’s a good reason for Ridgefield’s growing affluence, said Nathan Cano, the owner of Vancouver’s Cano Real Estate. The city has a vast store of open land, much of it with views of the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge and the Cascade Range — and it has the lowest property tax rate in the county.
Cano took over sales at the 400-lot Pioneer Canyon subdivision in 2010, and that year he managed to sell only 16 houses there. Sales picked up in the next two years, and Pioneer Canyon has now finally sold out of its single-family homes.
At this point, homes are selling at a premium price in Ridgefield, said Cushenbery, who looked all throughout the Portland-Vancouver metro area before landing his new house.
“It’s very affordable, and there’s plenty of land here,” Cushenbery said. “Frankly, down in Wilsonville (Ore.), a 30-year-old house costs as much as this house brand new.”
Cano expects Ridgefield’s median household income to rise in the coming years as housing construction continues and property values increase. But one of the keys to continuing to draw in homeowners is attracting new businesses to take root in the city, he said.
“We’re still anxious to see a lot of employment get started out there, and I think that’s when the floodgates are going to open,” Cano said.
In the meantime, some new residents are coming to the small city to get away from the traffic, noise and crime in Portland and Vancouver.
Eric Barnett, a United Airlines pilot who commutes to Los Angeles every workday, recently purchased a home in the upscale Heron Ridge subdivision. Barnett chose the place mainly for its easy access to I-5, Portland International Airport and his parents just a few hours south in Central Oregon.
Since moving to Ridgefield, Barnett said he’s been pleasantly surprised by some of the city’s other features: the marina, the quaint downtown area and the lack of traffic on Ridgefield streets.
“I was looking for someplace that was out of the city, more rural, but yet still not in the sticks, and I stumbled across Ridgefield,” he said. “I know it’s going to change, with everybody building around here, but at the same time, I think it’s going to keep the same feel.”
