The future site of the Columbia Gardens Apartments is seen on Monday morning. The planned complex at the corner of Northeast 112th Avenue and Northeast 16th Street will include 124 affordable units. (Nathan Howard/The Columbian)Photo Gallery
A developer has submitted a preliminary application to build a 124-unit affordable apartment complex in east Vancouver.
The project, titled Columbia Gardens Apartments, would be located at the southeast corner of Northeast 112th Avenue and Northeast 16th Street, a short distance east of Interstate 205.
The 5.7-acre lot is heavily wooded and currently undeveloped apart from a single house on the 112th Avenue side, which would be demolished as part of the project.
The application was submitted Oct. 3 by Tacoma-based residential construction company Vaughn Bay Construction Inc. on behalf of property owner DPS LLC, which lists the same Tacoma address. Vaughn Bay did not return a call seeking comment.
The application states that the project’s land use review will be submitted under Vancouver’s 90-Day Streamline Review Process, in order to meet a six-month deadline for a federal tax credit for affordable housing developments.
The preliminary application details a site plan with 10 residential buildings, each two or three stories tall, along a central access road through the site. The development would feature approximately 210 parking spaces and two driveway access points along 112th Avenue.
The total residential building area would be approximately 104,465 square feet. The buildings would have a mix of 50 two-bedroom units, 56 three-bedroom units and 18 four-bedroom units, although the packet said those numbers are not finalized.
The plan also includes open space and community areas, as well as a 2,100-square-foot central recreation building that would house the leasing office, a computer room and a fitness room.
A pre-application conference with the city is scheduled for 10 a.m. Nov. 7.
Development hotspot
The Columbia Gardens site is across the street from a separate residential housing project currently under construction called Four Seasons South, which is planned to include 70 units on the north side of Northeast 16th Street.
That project comes from Vancouver-based Ginn Development and is part of a cluster of nearby projects in the Landover-Sharmel neighborhood. The area has seen an influx of development in recent years following the completion of a new partial interchange where Northeast 18th Street crosses Interstate 205.
Previously, the street simply crossed the freeway without connecting, and drivers would need to enter and exit at the Mill Plain interchange about one mile south. The Washington State Department of Transportation completed the $38.4 million interchange project in mid-2016.
The biggest nearby project is called the main Four Seasons subdivision, located along Northeast Four Seasons Lane between Northeast 18th and 23rd streets.
Four Seasons South is one of several nearby satellite projects, including Four Seasons Landing on Northeast 23rd Street and Four Seasons Crossing on the west side of Northeast 112th Avenue. There are also two Four Seasons apartment projects in the works, at the northeast corner of Northeast 18th Street and Northeast 112th Avenue.
The city has a development plan for the area called the 112th Avenue Corridor Subarea Plan, which imposes a common set of design guidelines for the various projects with the goal of creating a walkable community along a portion of the street between Mill Plain Boulevard and Northeast Burton Road.
The Columbia Gardens project and all of the Four Seasons projects are located within the plan’s designated area.
