40,000-square-foot business park breaks ground

Pacific NW Properties is expanding its presence in Vancouver with new Fourth Plain Business Park

Pacific NW Properties

With the uptick in the economy, industrial and retail space is difficult to come by – even more so for small bay tenants. Hoping to provide a solution in Clark County, Pacific NW Properties, a Beaverton-based real estate development and management company, has broken ground on their sixth Vancouver project.

Located on a 2.5 acre parcel near the new Orchards Walmart at NE Fourth Plain Boulevard and NE 152nd Avenue, the Fourth Plain Business Park is a total of 40,000 square feet. Spaces range from 3,000 to 12,000 square feet of, predominantly, light manufacturing. However, due to its prime frontage, 20 percent of the development is zoned retail, which could mean room for a brew pub, paint store or some other business interested in taking advantage of the high visibility along Fourth Plain.

On their team is Portland-based general contractor P&C Construction and architect Mildren Design Group. Capacity Commercial Group has also been hired on to help with leasing. Weather-dependent, the Fourth Plain Business Park will be ready for occupancy toward the end of the fourth quarter.

The concept of all Pacific NW projects is to build on a speculative basis so that tenants can move in as-is or with very little stylizing. Their specialty is small commercial tenants in a market that regards bigger as better.

“Our model is linking with businesses and holding them long-term, which is not as common now [because] there are fewer local folks like us,” said Evan Bernstein, a partner with Pacific NW. “The market has become so institutionalized – kind of a ‘fill it and get out in five years’ mentality.”

Pacific NW prides itself on being a family-owned firm. Since the company’s inception in 1990, they’ve grown to 3.5 million square feet of managed space in the Portland metro area. Although less than 200,000 square feet of that total is in Vancouver, this newest acquisition will complement the existing 112th Avenue Business Park and 121st Avenue Business Park.

Within their current Vancouver holdings is a dynamic tenant mix including an electrical contractor, sports supplement manufacturer, hot tub distribution company, basketball training operation and wafer manufacturing company.

While one larger-sized company can easily take over a 40,000-square-foot space on its own, it’s actually more expensive and more management-intensive to design one or two buildings to accommodate several more modest businesses. Yet, that’s the business model that Pacific NW prefers.

“We’re committed to the Portland metro area,” Bernstein said. “This is our backyard. While other companies have expanded and looked at other cities, we’re sticking only to the Portland metro area as our bread and butter.”

Like other developments from Pacific NW properties, Bernstein said the new business park will feature flexible floor plans in area with excellent freeway access, providing tenants with an attractive commute to and from work as well as high visibility in the face of smaller marketing budgets.

“We’re really excited to be expanding our footprint into the Vancouver area,” he added. “We’re optimistic about this project and excited to fill it up with high-quality tenants. I think there’s a real demand and we’re excited to fill that need.”

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