Builder proposes apartments on Main in downtown

The block is within the city’s transit overlay district, so there’s an opportunity to put a bus stop on the property, Wilson said, which will be discussed at the May 5 pre-application conference. The project includes parking between two buildings facing Main and Washington streets.

“I think there’s kind of a pent-up demand at this point for housing — a variety of housing,” he said.

Currently, the gravel lot is used for parking, and heavy equipment is corralled on the property within a fenced area.

Once a lumberyard

Local historian Pat Jollota said that the block used to have a restaurant called Main Street Station, which left the sign at the corner of Main and 15th streets. The restaurant was torn down sometime in the late 1970s to early 1980s, Jollota said. Before that, it was a lumberyard.

Wilson Architects designed the 2001-built Heritage Place, a brick apartment and retail complex across the street from Esther Short Park in downtown Vancouver. The company is also working on Our Heroes Place, a planned apartment project comprising two five-story buildings at 401 E. Mill Plain Blvd.

Many other residential projects are underway in the downtown and uptown areas west of Interstate 5. Construction workers are framing the 18-unit Herby complex, just a few blocks east of the Hutton property. Also, excavation work is being done at 509 E. 16th St. for the 48-unit Midtown apartment building.

Vancouver Housing Authority owns a nearby block of land and plans to turn it into apartments and townhouses for low-income households. The nonprofit is accepting proposals through April 29 for developing the block at 16th and D streets.

There are plans to build a six-story, 167-unit apartment called the Uptown just a block north of the Hutton property. The project, which would also include 8,000 square feet of retail space, is under review.