Within the next year, Vancouver could see the emergence of a new urban village.
With the help of Vancouver-based Planning Solutions Inc., California developer Harper Communities Inc. is gearing up for the final design phase of The Village at Old Trolley Square, 353,360-square-foot, mixed-use urban village near Sifton.
The 12-building project on 13.86 acres will be a mix of more than 90,000 square feet of retail space, 102,500 square feet of office, as many as 75 condominiums and a 50,000-square-foot church – all built around a central plaza and fountain.
The $50 million project will rise from now-vacant land on the north side of Fourth Plain Road between Northeast 127th and Northeast 131st avenues.
Creating a community
Developers envision a central, pedestrian-focused urban streetscape where residents, shoppers and tenants can mingle, lingering at sidewalk cafes and boutiques that open directly onto the sidewalk.
Planners have designed it to create a community and bring the outside community together, rather than encouraging a strip-mall mentality of driving from destination to destination.
“We’re hoping for more of a series of events – people coming after work for a drink during happy hour, having dinner at a restaurant then maybe seeing some live music in the plaza,” said Dan George, a principal with Planning Solutions. “A place where you park once and can spend an evening or a Saturday afternoon.”
The three- and four-level buildings will have different aesthetics to give the feeling of an older development and avoid feeling like Disneyland – although George said Harper Communities has developed at the theme park in the past.
The corridors between buildings were highly scrutinized to maintain a view of Mt. Hood, and painstaking attention was paid to wind-reducing landscaping and maximization of light, an important detail in soggy Southwest Washington, George said.
“With lighting, we can encourage people to stay and extend their day,” he said.
Meeting market demands
Harper Communities designed the concept and Planning Solutions helped refine the vision through the project’s theme. The layout and design will definitely fit in the Northwest, George said.
Planners employed Eric Hovee, principal of E.D. Hovee & Co., a Vancouver-based economic research and development firm, to further tune the project to local market demands.
The streetscape will be centered on Kerr Road, a planned private street that will cut diagonally across the northern half of the development and connect with the county’s existing road network.
In the past, this road has been a hindrance to development at the site, George said. The developers scored points with the county for integrating it into the project design.
Krys Ochia, a team leader for the county’s Community Development Department, said the county quickly grew to like the project because the developers came to the table with the community’s interests in mind and were willing to work with the county regarding design elements.
Both sides compromised on the privatization of Kerr Road, the presence of arched entryways on both ends of Kerr Road and sidewalk widths.
No development process is smooth, Ochia said, but the developers and county planners were both open, communicated well and worked cohesively.
“We appreciate the ability of the developer to come up with something different and the willingness to exceed the minimums,” he said.
The project itself is not unusual in Southwest Washington, but the level of awareness regarding how it would impact the community and willingness to compromise was different, Ochia added.
Harper Communities is looking to make it a regional project, attracting folks from Battle Ground, Camas, Fishers Landing and Northeast Portland.
“We’re hoping to reach across the mythical divide of the Columbia River,” George said.
Vancouver’s growth during the last few years has come to the attention of most national developers, he said.
“This area accepts this kind of development,” he said.
The developers bought some of the land from WinCo Foods and private landowners. To the west is undeveloped land with higher density to the north, light industrial to the east, commercial development to the south and a lumberyard to the southeast.
George said the hope is for Old Trolley Square to become the nucleus of the area.
Connectivity at the forefront
The development’s sidewalk system and roadways will connect with those of the surrounding area, and will encourage people close by to walk or bike to their destinations.
The final design will incorporate sustainable features, and planners are aiming for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification by the U.S. Green Building Council.
Features such as multi-level buildings that utilize land and energy efficiently and a streetscape design that incorporates a bus stop, numerous benches and bike racks help to reduce the project’s impact on the environment.
Planners also paid close attention to the positioning of 877 onsite parking spaces. George said the parking was uniquely designed so that different uses will use the spaces at different times throughout the day.
This way, less land had to be devoted to parking, he said.
