Birtcher Real Estate Prepares to Seek Approval for 220-Acre Light Industrial Park

VANCOUVER, WA-The Birtcher Real Estate Group is gearing up for its joint venture with Keller-Trust to develop the trust’s 220-acre property south of Fourth Plain Boulevard and west of Ward Road. In February, Laguna Niguel, CA-based Birtcher will commence with the master plan approval process for the first 80 acres, expected to hold up to one million sf of light industrial space by 2005.

Roads and utilities–a $7 million piece of the puzzle–are slated for completion in the summer of 2002, as are the development’s first 200,000 sf of buildings, according to Jim Edwards, Birtcher’s vice president of development and marketing. Edwards works out of offices in AmberGlen Business Center, a 213-acre Birtcher development in Hillsboro that is going gangbusters with three light industrial buildings and one class A office building currently under construction and largely preleased.

Birtcher Business Center will have a similar campus feel, says Edwards, but its zoning will dictate more of a single-story, light industrial feel than AmberGlen, which incorporates mid-rise class A office buildings into the mix. Birtcher has hired the Vancouver-based consulting firm JD White Co. to take the first phase of Birtcher Business Center through the master plan approval process.