I have made several treks across the Columbia River to "our" Vancouver in recent months, mostly to learn more about the transportation needs of our sister community. During each trip, I spotted Vancouver success stories in the making, but never had the time to indulge my curiosity about these other terrific things the city is doing.
On Sept. 22, I brought a group of city leaders from around Metro District 2, plus a few from beyond my district, to see what is going on up there. My primary purpose was to tour the Vancouver Water Resources Education Center, but as I talked with folks in Lake Oswego, Milwaukie, Oregon City and West Linn, for starts, they were also interested in the amazing revitalization of downtown Vancouver.
We decided to make a day of it, and Vancouver very graciously agreed to host us. Thank you Mayor Tim Leavitt, Councilor Jack Burkman and all of you who spent time with us.
Why start with what we used to call a sewage treatment plant? Many of the cities in District 2 have great aspirations for better ways to use their riverfronts than with the acres of smelly sewage treatment facilities that cover the land now. Oregon City Mayor Alice Norris has long pushed to recover the cove near the mouth of the Clackamas River, for example. Mayor Jack Hoffman from Lake Oswego sees similar potential in the Foothills area below State Street in downtown Lake O. Both mayors joined us to learn how Vancouver was able to rethink their infrastructure needs such that there is now a very high-end residential development right next door to what had been the sewage treatment plant.
In the 1990s, Vancouver was faced with the need to expand sewage treatment capacity at its Columbia River front facility. Rather than build out, they built smarter. Today, you approach the water recovery facilities (we don't call them sewage treatment plants anymore, thank you), through a beautiful park, a bike and walking trail by your side. The main building is a bit like our OMSI, with interactive displays about the importance of water and the value of the fish and wildlife that clean water protects. On the day we visited, the place was crawling with kids who seemed totally engaged with all the educational experiences.
Even the "works," the Marine Park Water Reclamation Facility, is designed for public tours, so there is no smell (except in one building and no venting from it to the outdoors) and the overall appearance, even from the residential neighborhoods on the bluffs overlooking the site, is of a well-landscaped office park. The same road that crosses these facilities continues into the Tidewater Cove, a mix of high-end condos and an office park that hug the river shore. Great views are pretty much guaranteed. Sewage smells are prohibited and avoided by enclosing all the facilities and using newer technologies. Councilor Burkman says he has never received a single complaint about odors from the new plant.
Next we followed the riverfront back toward downtown Vancouver for a walking tour of Esther Short Park and the surrounding redevelopment that is making Vancouver shine. If you have not visited Vancouver in 10 years, you will not recognize it. My in-laws used to bring us to The Holland restaurant in Vancouver for its great pies and burgers, so about a decade ago I had touched down in that community and been fairly concerned about even driving by Esther Short Park.
Not so anymore. It is now the lively hub of an exciting new downtown. On each side of the park there are new multi-story townhouse and condo complexes, a city-owned Hilton Hotel and Convention Center (the first Hilton to win LEED Gold status for efficiency), a future new City Hall, and the Farmers Market, for which the city designed a curb-less street configuration with built-in utilities to serve market stalls.The housing mix ranges from affordable to affluent, from three and four story to taller, some with store fronts at street level and some without. It’s a combination that is so well thought out and fun to be in that I can understand why the city is attracting more investments and a growing population.
Just a short walk from the park is the older part of downtown, and while the city is planning a huge new high-rise development on its riverfront over the 10 to 15 year planning horizon, the great bones of its current “Old Town” are the focus of current efforts. A quick stroll through this area, which eventually will be served by the extension of light rail from Portland, demonstrates how even smaller projects can really create excitement and collaboration among local shop owners. Newly painted store fronts, mini-block parks – one created from an abandoned and fenced off transit site – and food carts are enlivening the community.
All of us on the tour were inspired. We all came home ready to, at a minimum, take on some of the little projects that have helped make Vancouver sparkle.