After a two month delay related to financing, work began last week and will continue to ramp up over the next month or so. Eric Fuller & Associates commercial real estate brokerage, is handling the office and retail leasing portions of the project.The two seven-story apartment buildings total 190 units and will be completed in the third quarter of 2003. The 11-story office-and-condominium building will be completed in early 2004. It will have approximately 55,000-sf of office and 34 condos. Another office-condominium building of similar size is planned as a future phase. The overall project will have a total of 16,000 sf of retail space. Already completed is a three-story underground parking garage with 890 parking spaces.

R&H Construction is the general contractor. The Belbadi Group is the official developer of Vancouvercenter. The company is headed by Lewis & Clark College graduate Ahmed Al-Badi. Al-Badi now lives in the United Arab Emirates but still serves on the College's Board of Trustees and is a good friend of Nawzad Othman, chief exeutive of Otak, the project architect and construction project manager for Vancouvercenter.

In early 2001, the project was delayed for two months as well so that the developer could make design changes in order to accommodate a larger parking garage. At that time, the first apartment building was scheduled for completion in late 2002 and the first office building was scheduled for delivery in mid 2003.