The professional services folks typically are the leading indicator for more positive things to come for a community. Without the land deals, business mergers and acquisitions; without the pre-permitting work done by site evaluators and engineers; without the zoning work, et al, there is no development or building project to create jobs.
Those activities are happening and the evidence is apparent throughout the county.
Prestige Development has broken ground on its apartment project on the site of the former Burgerville USA and Vancouver Police HQ sites; at Grand just north of Evergreen Blvd private developers have plans to renovate a former convenience market and add 1,500 square feet to accommodate retail and personal services businesses; the Salmon Creek area will be home to a new medical office building with four different specialties sharing the facility; a 90,000-square-foot office building is in the preliminary planning stages for east Vancouver along the Padden Parkway; SR-502 from I-5 to Battle Ground continues to move forward. These are just a sample of projects underway throughout the county.
Job creation is a much more obvious indicator and the Columbia River Economic Development Council (CREDC) reports that nearly 300 jobs were created in 2012 from new & existing businesses in what is refer to as the traded sector. That doesn’t begin to include the number of positions created by start-ups, and there have been many who’ve decided riding the upside of a recovery is the perfect time to jump out on their own.
Still, these examples underscore the fact that the recovery is percolating and not even close to boiling. It is exactly this level of activity already coming out of the ground combined with the deals in the pipeline that will provide the stability and predictability the business community needs.
It wasn’t so long ago when professional services folks were looking for alternate avenues to apply their expertise, and developers were saying, “No it’s not time to jump back in yet.” Apparently, at least for some, that time has come.
It’s our hope that these actions, combined with activities on the way, will continue to move this percolating recovery forward – from sector specific to widespread and sustainable for us all.
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