A reporter’s reflection as he contemplates moving on
Shane Cleveland
VBJ Staff Reporter
As I drive north next month to my new home in the Puget Sound area, I imagine it will hit me just how much I have learned about Clark County and its business community in the year-and-a-half I have been fortunate enough to be part of the Vancouver Business Journal staff. I didn’t know much about Clark County or Vancouver—this is where I spare you the joke about a certain British Columbia city—before I arrived here. Early on, I had many questions that needed answering before I could effectively write about this community, such as Who are Meier and Frank? Is that another strip mall? How many ways are there to incorporate the words Columbia or Lewis & Clark into the name of a business? Why don’t they just build another bridge across the river?
Luckily, answers to those questions and many others were quickly found. But what became most apparent to me is that Clark County is a place of change, and has been for some time. Not everyone likes change, including residents seeing subdivisions sprout up around their once secluded homes to longtime small businesses expecting the worst from the growing presence of Wal-Mart and the like. Collectively, however, change in the county is positive. In the short time I have been here, much has happened. The Hilton hotel and conference center opened in downtown Vancouver; Legacy Salmon Creek Hospital began serving the county; a number of commercial projects have broken ground in Ridgefield; La Center has made a bid to extend its city limits to Interstate 5; Battle Ground, Camas and Washougal have seen tremendous residential growth, with commercial projects close behind; the median price of homes in Clark County climbed past $250,000 for the first time; gas reached $3 a gallon. This snapshot is not unique. Clark County has been progressing for a long time and history is sure to continue repeating itself.
With success stories around every corner, the Clark County business community has been a pleasure to cover. No matter how bleak regional or national economic trends appeared—and you know how much reporters like trends—Clark County usually proved immune.
So it’s up to me to break the trend now. While everyone and their mothers are moving into Clark County, I am moving out. The sheer number of people and businesses relocating to Clark County certainly contributes to its success. But greater than that is how quickly they seem to embrace it as their home. Particularly for businesses, their commitment to making Clark County a better place to live and work shows. I hope to learn from example and bring that sense of community to my new home.
I will be sure to visit, and I wonder what I will see on my drive south 5, 10 or 20 years from now. Will I see a large Casino on my right as I travel past La Center? How quickly will I zoom through Salmon Creek with three or maybe more lanes of traffic headed in the same direction? How different will the Vancouver skyline appear, and will I have the option of traveling on one of three bridges if I drive across the river to Portland? Or perhaps I will stop off in Vancouver’s downtown waterfront development (maybe called the Lewis & Clark or Columbia shopping district) and take the light rail across instead. On my way over I will look upriver to see how far the Columbia Gateway development has come at the Port of Vancouver.
In the meantime, I will track the progress at www.vbjusa.com.
Editor’s note: Shane is leaving the Vancouver Business Journal with hopes to continue his Business Reporting in the Puget Sound area. Shane’s wife has been offered a position allowing them to move closer to family. We wish both of them continued success.
