Camas business park advances

The Camas Planning Commission has approved preliminary plans for a nearly 943,000-square-foot industrial business park along Northwest Lake Road. The proposal, which would construct two warehouse buildings and one manufacturing building at 4707 (and 4723) N.W. Lake Road, across from the WaferTech campus, will now head to the Camas City Council for final approval.

The applicants, Panattoni Development Co, specialize in industrial and office development, boast 46 offices around the world with over 2,500 clients, including Fed Ex, Home Depot, Bridgestone, Tesco, Petsmart, Unilever and HP, and have, according to the company’s website, developed more than 544 million square feet of space.

Camas city staff have said “a specific user has not been identified for the warehouse buildings at this time.”

“The applicant is currently seeking site plan review approval for the construction of three warehouse/office industrial buildings totalling approximately 942,939 square feet on 74.06 acres across two lots within (Camas’) light industrial/business park zone,” the city’s senior planner, Lauren Hollenbeck, stated in her staff report to the planning commission.

The project would likely be built in three phases, Hollebeck added, with the first phase including a 722,397-square-foot warehouse building on the property’s southern lot, as well as all roads and utilities. The second phase would construct a smaller, 127,191-square-foot warehouse building on the northern lot. The third phase would construct a 93,351-square-foot structure described as a manufacturing building in the city’s traffic analysis on the southern lot.

Hollenbeck said the business park would have access points along “a separate driveway” off Northwest Lake Road as well as from the north via Northwest Camas Meadows Drive.

The property is surrounded by office buildings to its north, the Camas Meadows golf course to the northwest, the Camas Meadows golf course driving range and single-family residence to its northeast, the Dwyer Creek Business Park and RV storage to its southwest, WaferTech to the south (across Northwest Lake Road) and a single-family residence zoned regional commercial to the southeast.

Some highlights included in the staff report presented to the planning commission on May 17:

• Wetlands and pastures: The site is primarily used as “actively grazed pasture,” Hollenbeck stated in her staff report, and has scattered forested areas as well as four wetlands on the northern half of the property. The development would remove an existing residence on the site. The developers plan to retain three of the wetlands, Hollenbeck told the planning commission, but would fill a “low-functioning wetland exempt from buffer regulations due to its isolated location and small size.”

• Tree plan would retain 50-inch Oregon white oak: The project also would retain a 50-inch Oregon white oak tree within one of the wetlands – the only white oak with a diameter breast height of over 20 inches according to the applicant’s arborist survey. Developers plan to retain 476 trees, add 837 in landscaping: The property has approximately 800 trees, according to that same report prepared by Teragon & Associates, Inc., in October 2021. Under the city’s urban tree program approved in 2018, the developers will need to have 1,434 trees to meet the city’s requirement of 20 tree units per net acre. The developers have proposed retaining 476 of the approximately 800 trees on the site and adding 837 trees. The development would need to either add an additional 121 trees or pay for “tree credits” to plant trees in another part of the city.

• Traffic impact study shows project could add 100 trips during peak hours: A traffic impact analysis prepared for the applicants in November 2021, by Heath & Associates, Inc., shows the business park would likely generate 1,656 average weekday daily trips with 132 vehicles coming in and out of the business park during the peak morning commute hours (101 vehicles in and 31 out) and 155 vehicles coming in and out of the business park (45 in and 110 out) during the peak evening commute hours. About 20 of those trips in the morning and 12 in the evening would be heavy vehicles.

• Project would add two new roads: The developers will add a new road along the eastern edge of the site, “Street A,” to provide a north-south connection between Lake Road and Camas Meadows Drive, and a new east-west road, “Street B,” through the center of the site that could someday connect to future development west of the business park. The traffic impact study concluded that the developers would need to pay the city a little more than $550,000 in traffic impact fees (TIF), but “may be eligible for TIF credit to apply against construction costs associated with the street improvements occurring via the new north-south Street A and east-west Street B.”

• Business park will likely have at least 775 parking spaces: According to the staff report on the business park development, though “no specific user has been identified for the warehouse buildings at this time,” the applicant has stated that around 5 percent of the space, or 47,145 square feet, will be reserved for office space. The city’s code requires one parking space per 1,000 square feet of gross floor area for warehouse or storage facilities, but requires one parking space per 250 square feet of gross floor space for general office buildings. Though that formula would require 1,084 parking spaces — 188 for the offices and 895 for the warehouses –city staff found that, based on the proposed number of vehicle trips included in the traffic analysis, the applicant’s proposal for 775 parking spots would satisfy the city’s requirements.

The planning commissioners unanimously approved the land-use proposal at a May 17 public hearing. The business park proposal now moves to the Camas City Council for its consideration.