Major Hurdles Cleared for 220-Acre Birtcher Development

VANCOUVER, WA-After a three-year entitlement process, Birtcher Real Estate Group SVP Jim Edwards tells GlobeSt.com the company is on track to begin developing 220 acres of the city’s pastureland by mid-year 2004. The news comes a week after the City of Vancouver approved the development agreement for the master planned project as well as a rezone, and the day after the city formally initiated the annexation process.

Edwards says the 46-acre parcel, rezoned from light industrial to general commercial, will eventually be sold off to Alexandria Investments, a Bellevue, WA-based firm that is planning a 500,000-sf retail development that will be called Eastgate Shopping Center. The remaining acreage, minus wetlands and buffers, will be developed into Birtcher Business Center, a one million-sf industrial-flex development that will take an estimated 10 years and $100 million to build out.