Purchase of 51 acres part of expansion of Columbia Tech Center campus
By Amy Fischer, Columbian
City Government Reporter
Published: November 18, 2015, 4:51pm
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Pac Trust is acquiring a 51-acre rock quarry to expand its 425-acre Columbia Tech Center campus in east Vancouver. Owned by Pacific Rock Products, the quarry faces Southeast First Street and is west of the Home Depot on Souheast 192nd Avaenue. (Amanda Cowan/The Columbian) (Amanda Cowan/The Columbian)Photo Gallery
Pac Trust is negotiating the purchase of 51 acres of rock quarry property from Pacific Rock Products as part of an expansion plan for the Columbia Tech Center campus in east Vancouver.
The quarry lies within the north-central portion of the Columbia Tech Center’s 425-acre campus that was developed atop a former gravel mine. Now the tech center, of which Portland-based Pac Trust is the master developer, is a flourishing development that lies between Southeast 164th and 192nd avenues and includes offices, retail shopping, residential living, light industrial business and Clark College classrooms.
“We’ve developed probably close to 80 to 85 percent of that property, so ultimately, we see a need for having additional land to continue to expand the project,” Pac Trust CEO Peter Bechen said Wednesday.
The quarry is west of the Home Depot on Southeast 192nd Avenue between Southeast First Street and Southeast Sixth Way. Pac Trust is buying four parcels from Pacific Rock in phases, with the final purchase in 2018, he said. Pac Trust bought two parcels totaling about 28 acres in March, and for now, Pacific Rock is still using the remaining acreage. All 51 acres have been mined.
“It’s a big hole in the ground at the moment,” Bechen said.
The property had some large berms around it that Pac Trust pushed in to level the site, but a large drop remains from First Street to the elevation of the parcels. Additional work will be needed to develop a road up to First Street. Pac Trust also is looking at possibly dropping the elevation of First Street along that area, Bechen said.
As far as exactly how Pac Trust plans to use the new parcels, “We don’t know,” Bechen said. “We want flexibility to meet whatever the market demands.”
Banfield headquarters
The company is using some of the quarry property it had already purchased in March for parking and landscaping for Banfield Pet Hospital’s new corporate headquarters, a 17.5-acre campus that adjoins the Pacific Rock property to the south. The Banfield campus, which will include a half-acre off-leash dog exercise area and three office buildings housing about 600 employees, is expected to open in mid-2016.
Pac Trust expects to develop the rest of the Pacific Rock parcels sometime over the next five to 10 years, Bechen said.
“Ultimately, it’ll be more of the same, just as Columbia Tech Center is — a large, mixed-use project,” he said.
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