In June 2008, what was then known as the Vancouver National Historic Reserve commissioned a marketing study of 504 randomly-selected households in the four-county Portland-Vancouver metro area, instructing them to identify the closest National Park.
Only 1 percent of the respondents named the historic site, according to Elson Strahan, president and CEO of the Fort Vancouver National Trust.
Sitting on 366 acres overlooking the Columbia River, the rebranded Fort Vancouver National Site remains largely a hidden gem, despite its historical importance as a center of European settlement and as home to legendary generals Ulysses S. Grant and George C. Marshall.
But as the U.S. Army prepares to formally hand over its property to the National Park Service, and plans for development for the city-owned portion of the Fort Vancouver National Site continue to move forward, this forgotten slice of Americana may yet get its rightful place in the regional spotlight.
"Separate, but equal" development
Since the mid-1980s, Fort Vancouver has been mostly divided between National Park Service land, Army-owned property used by the 104th Airborne Division, Washington National Guard and the 396th Ambulance Corps, and city-owned parcels administered by the Fort Vancouver National Trust, including West Barracks and Officers Row.
When the army vacates as expected in September 2011, development of federal and city-owned land will proceed along separate, yet "parallel" tracks, according to Park Service project manager Ray Cozby. "We are trying to make sure we are not stove piped – that we are integrated and that it all flows nicely," Cozby said.
Plans for city-owned property center on the West Barracks area, which includes former Army installations such as the old Post Hospital. According to Strahan, development on this portion of Trust land will focus on "arts, education and hospitality," priorities outlined in Vancouver's West Barracks Reuse Plan passed by the City Council in 2002.
Meanwhile, development on federally-owned property, which includes the East and South Barracks, will be slightly more utilitarian in scope. "Our goal is to have a full functioning campus, one where everything is being used," Cozby said.
However, bringing 100-year-old structures into the 21st century may take lots of effort, as well as money. Environmental planning for the East and South Barrack structures, many of them in disrepair and filled with hazardous materials such as lead paint, is ongoing, Cozby said. And according to Jan Bader, the city's "point person" for the Fort Vancouver site, outdated water and sewer lines on the federally-owned property may also need to be replaced.
Already two small dilapidated Army buildings in South Barracks have recently been demolished at the request of the National Park Service, according to Cozby.
Achieving self-sufficiency
Despite having separate development plans, Cozby and Strahan stressed the city, Trust and National Park Service's unity of purpose in regards to the future of the Fort Vancouver National Site.
"This property can be, and should be, a great economic driver," Strahan said.
As a possible template for future development elsewhere on the campus, Strahan pointed to Officers Row, a line of Victorian-style buildings bought by the city from the U.S. Army for $1 in 1987. "At the time, a lot of folks thought it was a waste of time and money," he said.
In the years since, rents from a mix of government agencies and private businesses, including the Vancouver Business Journal, have helped pay back about $11 million in bonds used to rehabilitate Officers Row, according to Strahan. And with the Trust claiming commercial vacancy rates at around 3 percent, compared to a county-wide vacancy rate of about 18 percent, Strahan said Officers Row more than paid for itself.
That's a fiscal scenario the city would like see repeated in the West Barracks' proposed "art, education and hospitality" arena. "The hope is that Fort Vancouver will continue to draw out-of-town visitors, giving them the opportunity to stay for a long weekend at a hotel and provide more places to eat and to shop," Bader said. "But we also want it to be self-sufficient."
CRC: the elephant at the Reserve
No matter what form the replacement span for the aging Interstate Bridge eventually takes, it will have a major effect – perhaps not on the Fort Vancouver site itself, but on the future of the planned Community Connector over I-5.
Currently part of the proposed $2.6 billion to $3.6 billion Columbia River Crossing, the planned two-block-long highway cap seeks to more fully integrate Vancouver's downtown district with the Fort Vancouver site.
However, with the controversial CRC planning process stalled, Strahan emphasized the separate nature of the Connector project, as well as its importance to development in the West Barracks area. "For years there has been an identified need for an enhanced pedestrian crossing at 7th Street," Strahan said. "To me, even if the CRC never happens, our plans are to move forward with increased access."
According to Bader, continued uncertainty regarding the CRC's final design caused at least some plans for development at the Fort Vancouver National Site to be put on hold. "It's going to be hard to put artist spaces in at the [Post] hospital without knowing if there's going to be a park or an 80-foot sound wall outside the window," she said.
A catalyst for development
With the 104th Airborne in the final phase in its relocation to Fort Lewis, and the National Guard and Ambulance Corps moving to a facility in east Vancouver, changes at the South and East Barracks have already begun, with $1 million spent last year on preliminary planning, Cozby said.
Given the site's easy access to the I-5 corridor, Cozby and Strahan said they hoped to convince cash-strapped federal agencies to relocate from more expensive per-square-foot office locations in Oakland and Seattle to the Fort Vancouver National Site.
In the West Barracks area, as is the case for many privately-held parcels throughout Clark County, development plans are mostly on hold due to continuing weakness in the region's real estate market.
However, this major stumbling block has not deterred Strahan from seeing the big picture. Nor has it dampened his dream of turning this hidden treasure into a tourist mecca like Fort Mason or Fort Baker in San Francisco – something much more than a colonial "Williamsburg of the West."
"There's not a piece of the puzzle that isn't interdependent," he said. "But if one piece gets stuck, the other can still move forward."
First image caption:
Sitting on 366 acres
overlooking the Columbia
River, the Fort Vancouver
National Site is currently a
hodgepodge of federal, city and
privately-owned land, catering
to a number of different uses.
Future development of the
site will mostly proceed along
separate “parallel” tracks, with
the city-owned West Barracks
(on map above, shaded in
orange) focusing on “arts,
education and hospitality” and
the South and East Barracks
(shaded in yellow) moving
forward along more utilitarian
lines.
