SamboraBlog

Untapped possibilities

Sunday, April 01, 2007
By JEFFREY MIZE Columbian staff writer

Five challenges will shape what type of community Vancouver will be 10 years from now

For the better part of 10 years, Vancouver has strived to be a community on the move rather than one standing still.

The city's boundaries have been pushed east to Camas. Its once-dismal downtown is beginning to blossom. The city continues to gain prominence and clout across the region.

As Vancouver celebrates its 150th birthday this year, it faces underlying challenges that go beyond the big problems, such as finding millions for road improvements, and the more mundane tasks of patching potholes and writing parking tickets.

Five challenges will determine what type of community Vancouver will be 10 years from now.

1. Create jobs

Southwest Washington Medical Center is Vancouver's largest employer, but the hospital's work force of 2,500 is dwarfed by the 50,000 or more county residents who work in Portland.

Some three years after Mayor Royce Pollard unveiled his "Vancouver is open for business" placard, job growth seems more a result of Clark County's burgeoning population than the fruits of a meticulous strategy.

Vancouver has achieved some successes, including persuading Nautilus to keep its corporate headquarters in the city and pushing tax incentives through the Legislature so SEH America will invest hundreds of millions in its Vancouver plant. The city has worked with other organizations, such as the Port of Vancouver, and tried to woo Portland companies frustrated with the perceived intransigence of their city government.

The numbers indicate an expanding economy moving away from its industrial roots. Clark County added 4,200 jobs in 2006. Employment growth has averaged 3.2 percent a year since 1990. But approximately one-third of the county's work force still commutes to Oregon.

"We've had fairly rapid job growth," said Eric Hovee, a Vancouver consultant. "What that has allowed is for us to keep pace with population growth. But that has never allowed us to make up the deficit we started out with."

There haven't been many blockbuster recruitments, such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing's 1996 decision to build WaferTech in Camas, but job growth hasn't been confined to retail and other relatively low-paying sectors.

"Yes, we've lost manufacturing jobs," said Scott Bailey, regional economist for the Washington Employment Security Department. "But we have pretty good job growth in construction, which is fairly high-wage, good job growth in health care.

"Up until the recession, we had pretty good earnings growth. So this notion that all the new jobs are baristas doesn't really match what has been happening here."

Still, Vancouver and the rest of Clark County remains a bedroom community, more so than Clackamas and Washington counties. In 1990, there were 0.84 jobs for every household in Clark County, a ratio that had only slightly improved to 0.86 jobs per household in 2005, Bailey said.

In Clackamas County, there were 0.85 jobs per household in 1990 and 1.05 jobs for every household in 2005. Washington County, home to several Intel plants, has made even greater inroads, going from 1.12 jobs per household in 1990 to 1.28 jobs per household in 2005.

"What has happened with the other suburbs is there is much more balance," said Bailey, who lives in northeast Portland. "So when I go to Vancouver to work, I come sailing down the freeway when there is a parking lot on the other side. In Washington County, Highway 26, it's both ways."

2. Capture the community's full potential

Adding jobs and reducing Vancouver's reliance on Portland for employment would reduce traffic congestion. It also would help build a cohesive community and foster a stronger sense of identity.

So would redeveloping the Columbia River waterfront, the Vancouver National Historic Reserve, the Fourth Plain Boulevard corridor and other areas that cry out for attention. Vancouver already has accomplished much downtown, including the 2005 opening of the convention center, but it still has many opportunities ahead.

The Boise Cascade waterfront presents a chance for Vancouver to achieve prominence on the Northwest's grandest river. Those who dream of what could be see high-rise condominiums and apartments, overflowing restaurants and nightclubs, crowded plazas and promenades, and maybe even a thriving performing arts center. Those dreams are tempered by the realities of a site bracketed between two bridges that has limited access and is cut off from downtown by a busy railroad.

This isn't the first time there have been dreams of an urban waterfront where people could stroll along the river, eat lunch, browse at boutiques, shop at open-air markets and enjoy pleasant afternoons.

That at one time was the vision for Tidewater Cove. But limited access, neighborhood opposition and market realities turned the dream into an enclave for those able to shell out $1 million or more for a waterfront condominium.

At times, Vancouver has been reluctant to aim too high. Talk of bringing light rail or bus rapid transit to Vancouver reflects a degree of limited thinking.

Current planning calls for a transit line coming across a new Interstate 5 bridge that would end at a Park & Ride lot north of Kiggins Bowl. The stub line, about two miles long, is far short of a comprehensive loop that would head east along state Highway 500 or Fourth Plain Boulevard before turning south across the Interstate 205 Bridge and connecting to the MAX line serving Portland International Airport.

All of which begs the question: Will Vancouver have the verve to seize the initiative and, as Pollard implored during in his 2006 State of the City address, think big?

Steve Burdick, Vancouver's economic development manager, spent 10 years shepherding downtown's revitalization before announcing last week that he will leave city government at the end of April. Burdick, in an interview before his resignation was made public, wondered if the community wants a waterfront that would place it in the nation's first-tier cities.

"I think Vancouver in the last decade has come from being a community, on a scale from 1 to 10, that is maybe a 4 to one that is maybe a 7, a 7 1/2," he said. "The question is, does it have the aspiration to get in the 9 category?"

3. Make hard decisions

It does no good to think big without the backbone to make tough decisions and live with the benefits or consequences.

Vancouver, at times, has had a severe case of decision-itis.

Case in point: The city spent five agonizing years trying to decide whether to build a downtown convention center. Vancouver took the lead in lobbying the 1999 Legislature to divert a tiny slice of state sales taxes to large projects. But four years later, the city barely beat the deadline to break ground, and that was after the Legislature extended the deadline by an additional year.

More recently, Vancouver spent the better part of two years vowing to taking action to beef up city revenues. Last summer, the city council appeared ready to reinstitute a business and occupation tax that would raise $10 million or more annually to build and improve roads. But council members, feeling the heat from the business community, quickly folded. Now the city is chasing after much smaller amounts that won't come close to solving its transportation problems.

The city did build a downtown hotel-convention center, and it did enact a per-employee business surcharge to raise money for transportation, but only after years of debate and hand-wringing.

Pollard, the city's biggest cheerleader, said the council sometimes might err on the side of being too cautious.

"But if you look at the record over the past 10 years, the council, after some long, agonizing efforts, has made some right decisions," he said.

Without strong leadership and the willingness to take chances, the city will find itself coming up short of achieving the community's full potential. Revitalizing the Columbia River waterfront, the Fourth Plain corridor and other downtrodden areas will not happen in a vacuum.

4. Build relationships

Ten years ago, Vancouver sprang into statewide prominence when it worked hand in hand with Clark County to annex 58,000 people and become Washington's fourth-biggest city.

One year ago, the city tumbled into the political abyss when it made preliminary moves to annex another 70,000, only to have Clark County kill its aspirations to become the state's second-biggest city by disbanding the boundary review board.

Relations between the two governments remain strained 14 months later. Vancouver has adopted an unofficial cherry-picking strategy for annexation, seeking to add choice parcels primarily zoned for commercial development. Commercial development generates more tax revenue than residential.

The city and county also remain at loggerheads over growth management, particularly the commissioners' decision to rework the 2004 plan and expand urban growth areas. More recently, the city-county feud flared over options for a new Columbia River bridge.

The city has been able to work effectively in the state Legislature and with other governments in the Portland-Vancouver area. Vancouver's standing in the business community was strained by the B&O fracas last year, but the city still enjoys a good relationship with Identity Clark County and other groups.

Burdick said the city's work with Identity Clark County to build the downtown convention center was "about as tight of a relationship between the public sector and the business community as I have seen." Today, without a single project like the convention center commanding attention, Burdick sees a "wandering of focus."

Vancouver, he said, has the financial and technical ability to take on waterfront redevelopment and other large projects.

"I think the question is do you aspire to do it, do you have the grit to do it, and are you willing to put your faith in some group of people to take you there?" Burdick said.

5. Bridge the generation gap

A year ago, Councilman Tim Leavitt let it slip toward the end of a city council meeting that he had attended the previous night's Bon Jovi concert in Portland.

Bon who? asked a perplexed Pollard.

The New Jersey band has been a staple of the nation's music scene for more than two decades. Jon Bon Jovi, the group's lead singer, campaigned for John Kerry in 2004 and made a cameo appearance on "The West Wing." Richie Sambora, its guitarist, was married to actress Heather Locklear for 11 years.

But the Bon Jovi name was gibberish to Vancouver's top leader, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who listens to martial music in his city hall office.

The moment illustrated the generation gap in city government. Leavitt is 35; the average age of the other six council members is 60. Vancouver might want to build a trendy downtown and emulate Portland's success, but some of its leaders are more clueless than cool.

The city has a definitive suburban feel, with little nightlife or restaurants not affiliated with well-known chains. But this issue goes beyond music and popular culture. Building a modern city will appeal to the so-called creative class -- young engineers, writers, artists and others who can shape a knowledge-based economy and a community on the move, not one that is mired in the past.

"We talk a lot about attracting the creative class," Burdick said. "But that's all we have done, talk about it. We really haven't, and we probably don't know how, to go after that group."

Pollard, Vancouver's mayor since January 1996, has presided over the city as it launched downtown revitalization and other efforts that will shape the community for decades to come, but the former Vancouver Barracks commander also clings to the past.

"I think unless we know where we come from, we don't know where we're going to go," Pollard said, drumming his finger on the tabletop for emphasis. "That's why I and other people have a perspective that is important for this community."

Pollard at times can appear provincial. He almost boasts about having never been to Portland's trendy Pearl District.

"I haven't had a reason to," Pollard said. "I can look at pictures."

All of which contributes to the image of an activist mayor a little stuck in the past.

"Really?" Pollard replied in faux astonishment. "I don't care."

Jeffrey Mize can be reached at 360-759-8006 or jeff.mize@columbian.com.

Five challenges for Vancouver's future

Create jobs.

Capture the community's full potential.

Make hard decisions.

Build relationships.

Bridge the generation gap.