A whole lot of Holland is set to move to Camas, and it’s not a foreign delegation.
Holland Partner Group, the Vancouver property manager and multifamily developer, has submitted ambitious plans to build in west Camas, right next to the headquarters of multibillion-dollar money management firm Fisher Investments.
It proposes three four-story office buildings, each slated to be 100,000 square feet in size. It will have 12 garden-style apartment buildings nearby, complemented by a clubhouse and pool. A 20,000-square-foot market will toss in an upscale grocery and restaurants for good measure.
Dubbed the Grass Valley Development, it will be built across 35 acres south of Northwest 38th Avenue and add to the frenetic corridor that is the Vancouver-Camas border.
“The city is very excited,” said Phil Bourquin, community development director for the city of Camas. “We’re always interested in economic development, and (Holland Partner Group) is keeping it in Clark County. Allowing them a place to grow is fantastic.”
The new campus’s full purpose remains unclear. Holland appears to be expanding, Bourquin said, and were looking for new space. Its current headquarters is on the seventh floor of the Main Place building at 1111 Main St. in Vancouver.
Representatives from Holland Partner Group could not be reached by press time.
Fisher Investments’ involvement in the project is similarly murky at this point. A spokesman declined to say if the company has any involvement. Clark County property records show the land in question belongs to Fisher Creek West LLC, whose listed address is at Fisher Investments.
The development will be built in five phases and will serve hundreds of people daily. The three new offices will demand 1,150 parking spaces combined. Bourquin said Camas’s investments to bring gas and water lines to the area are paying off.
“We put a substantial investment out there in 38th 10 years ago,” he said.
Other arteries between Camas and Vancouver, like Pacific Rim Boulevard and Lake Road, are now dotted with new businesses. Fisher Investments came to Camas in 2011, then companies like WaferTech and Analog Devices, formerly Linear Technology, settled there.
“It helps solidify, even on a more macro level, the Columbia Tech Center-east Vancouver node and the west Camas area as a significant employment area,” said Paul Dennis, president of the Camas Washougal Economic Development Association. “Obviously we’re excited. More economic development, more economic activity.”
The Grass Valley Development will have a development agreement with the city of Camas as it gets built. The first office building could be built and occupied by the end of 2019, according to Dennis.
