Buyer emerges for long vacant North Coast Business Park

Jun. 23—The North Coast Business Park, a tract in Warrenton long in search of a future, may have found a developer.

The Clatsop County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday approved the sale of the property to Atlin Investments Inc., a Seattle-based company that developed the nearby Costco site.

The company was the sole responder to a request for proposals that the county floated between January and March.

The sale price of the 130-acre property is $1.3 million, with an earnest payment of $60,000. The property is near U.S. Highway 101, just north of S.E. Ensign Lane. S.E. 19th Street cuts through it.

A contingency period of 180 days begins once the sale agreement is signed. Atlin will have six options to extend the contingency period for 90 days. For each extension, Atlin must pay a nonrefundable $10,000, though that will count toward the purchase price once the sale goes through, Monica Steele, the assistant county manager, said.

Meanwhile, boxes must be checked.

Atlin's project description says the company must negotiate a development agreement with Warrenton, and another agreement with the state Department of Transportation to address curbs and access points. The company must get a wetland fill mitigation program approved by the Department of State Lands and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. And, once Warrenton accepts a design, the company must determine the cost of infrastructure.

The company estimates that the whole project will be finished in about a decade.

The park is "a unique opportunity in that it is the last major parcel of land in Clatsop County that is potentially developable that has access to the major highways and the airport," Atlin wrote in its proposal.

The deal with Atlin may mark the end of a 30-year saga to find a suitor for the sprawling, difficult land, which is plagued by soil and wetlands challenges.

Potential uses include warehousing, manufacturing, flex space, automotive services, self-storage that includes space to store RVs and boats, and a place to sell wholesale forest products, according to the proposal.

"There is no one type of user or theme for the North Coast Industrial Park as we anticipate interest from a wide spectrum of users ranging from local, regional, to national businesses," the proposal says.

The maximum area that can be developed is about 67 acres, the company wrote, adding that "the more likely amount is 50 to 60 acres depending on the availability of off-site wetland fill credits and mitigation areas."

Atlin estimates that greenbelt or wetlands will compose about half of the site.

Commissioner Lianne Thompson noted the struggle to fulfill the promise of the North Coast Business Park.

"This has been a gnarly issue" — she paused — "not quite 100 years, but doesn't it seem as though it has been?"

Sections of the land were cleared and graded in the 1960s for an aluminum plant that never materialized, the county said in its request for proposals. The county bought the acreage in 1991. Since then, proposals for commercial development have come and gone. The land has sat undeveloped, attracting homeless camps. The county has discussed getting rid of the property.

In 2018, a proposal envisioned a data center and technology incubator, but an agreement collapsed amid repeated extensions.

The business park was briefly a suggested site for a relocated county public works facility. County leaders said they preferred the occupant to be on the tax rolls.

"This has been an issue that people have been dealing with for years, and we're so glad to be moving forward and making progress," Commissioner Mark Kujala, the commission's chairman, said.