GlobeSt.com UPDATE: 300,000-SF Retail Development OK'd

OREGON CITY, OR-Clackamas County commissioners voted 2-to-1 in favor of Terry Emmert’s plans to build a 270,000-sf shopping center on 25 acres of heretofore industrial-zoned wetlands along State Route 212 at Southeast 142nd Avenue.

It will be several years before the project could be built, and there are several hurdles still to be cleared before it’s a sure thing. To the regional government Metro, the property is still industrial land, and Metro rules in place when Emmert applied for the project limit the size of commercial buildings on industrial land. That means Metro would have to reclassify the property as commercial or grant an exception to its rule in order for the project to move forward as planned. Metro also would have to grant an exception to its wetland rules or remove the project from its water quality and flood management map.

Additionally, the US Army Corps of Engineers must sign off on the filling of the land, and, if it does, may require a wetland mitigation plan for the property, which means the wetlands would have to be recreated elsewhere. Finally, the project must adhere to six conditions of approval and it could be as long as three years for building permits, as the county and the state still must decide how planned Sunset Corridor will cut across Emmert’s property.