April 2018
Volume 17 • Issue 4
Federal transfer of shoreline control may come this year BY ROBIN WOJTANIK
for Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business
Sustainability
Event offers tours of backyard chicken coops Page 11
Real Estate & Construction Page 21
Transportation
State DOT prepares for spring road projects page 39
he Said It
“I believe this is one of the most dynamic communities on the planet.” - Gregg McConnell, member of Tri-City Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Regional Affairs Committee Page 3
uSHORELINE, Page 31
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Frost Me Sweet to double in size
“Imagine the possibilities.” That’s what Brad Fisher ponders when he considers what the Columbia River shoreline could look like if it was in the hands of local jurisdictions and not the federal government. The senior vice president of RBC Wealth Management has teamed up with retired U.S. Congressman Doc Hastings and Gary Petersen, CEO of Petersen Consulting, to build community support for their plan to transfer river shoreline ownership and maintenance from the Army Corps of Engineers to the cities and counties. The land fell into federal control following a devastating flood in 1948, estimated by historians to have caused more than $500 million in damages in today’s dollars. “We think this is an issue that is so transformational for the Tri-Cities,” Fisher said. At stake are 34 miles of shoreline in Franklin and Benton counties starting at the bridge to Walla Walla County on the Franklin County side, up to the canal across the water from Hanford’s 300 Area. It also stretches from the Benton County side from near Finley, north to where the city of Richland meets Department of Energy land. “We’re not asking the Corps to give us permission,” Hastings said. “Congress is specifically writing legislation that says these Corps lands will be reconveyed back to the respective communities. There’s a huge difference. We call that getting away from the ‘Mother, may I?’ ” The group believes the time is now for this change in ownership so public access to the river can be improved through increased recreational offerings. Fisher, Hastings and Petersen said local entities could clean up the rivershores and lower the levees, which would beautify the area and encourage more people to use the natural resources. They said the effort also could allow for the possibility of future residential or commercial development.
David Lippes, left, and John Crook, principals at Boost Builds, stand outside their Richland building at 723 The Parkway that they recently bought and updated. It’s also home to Fuse SPC, a co-working community.
Richland developers plan to add apartments to city’s core BY ROBIN WOJTANIK
for Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business
A Richland company has an ambitious goal of bringing city-dwellers back to the central downtown area, to places either dominated by businesses or abandoned altogether. This includes high-profile locations in The Parkway and along Jadwin Avenue and George Washington Way, including the controversial pit at the gateway to the city. “The goal is to add a critical mass of people in the downtown Richland core area who will have the opportunity to walk or bike to work, walk or bike to recreation, and walk or bike to restaurants,” said David Lippes, principal at Boost Builds. “As we
develop commercially, and we add residential, we are effectively urbanizing this area of the Tri-Cities.” The company recently bought two buildings on Jadwin Avenue once occupied by Fluor Corp. for just over $1 million. The smaller of the two — a five-story nearly 50,000-square-foot building at 1100 Jadwin — is about 65 percent occupied, while its sister seven-story building has 110,000 square feet of vacant space. The buildings are on a 9.74-acre city-owned campus. Lippes said he’s dreaming of what the buildings can become, with plans to rebuild the commercial site at 1100 Jadwin and then take on a larger project at 1200 Jadwin. uBOOST, Page 4
Tri-City, Spokane radiology groups to merge practices this fall BY KRISTINA LORD editor@tcjournal.biz
A Tri-City radiology group has announced plans to merge with a Spokane clinic. Columbia Basin Imaging of the Tri-Cities and Inland Imaging PS of Spokane are combining their professional radiology groups, effective this September. CBI will be folded into Inland Imaging as part of the merger. CBI, made up of a Tri-City-based group of physicians, has provided radiology services at Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland for more than 30 years. “This partnership not only helps us better support radiology and imaging services throughout the region, it will also help promote the integration of services on the Kadlec campus by combining both interventional and
diagnostic radiology services within the new group,” said Dr. Richard Nguyen, president of CBI, in a statement. Nguyen said Inland Imaging Dr. Richard Nguyen approached the group two to three years ago to consider a merger, but CBI declined because the demographics of CBI’s radiologists were older and they wanted to stay independent. Today, the demographics are drastically different, he said. “It’s a very good move for the group and it was a unanimous decision by the shareholders,” he said.
uRADIOLOGY, Page 10
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