Longtime farm gives way to rare Tri-Cities riverfront project. What makes it different?

At the dawn of the U.S. entry into World War II, Lura and Fred Harris owned land the government wanted for the war effort.

It gave them 30 days to vacate their east Pasco dairy, citing military needs. Diversity Farm Dairy became a supply depot. Today, it forms the heart of Big Pasco Industrial Park, all traces of the former dairy obliterated.

The Harrises adapted. In 1942, Lura and Fred hauled themselves, their family and even their farmhouse down Court Street to the far western end.

They established a new farm at the former Wexler Ranch, 118 bucolic acres adjacent the Columbia River in unincorporated Franklin County.

Family lore holds that a family meal was still on the table when the house arrived at its new spot.

The move was by all accounts a success. Eight generations of Harrises grew up on the new farm and countless Tri-Citians bought fruits and veggies from their farm stand.

Eight decades on, it’s all changing again.

The old Harris Farm is gone. A 500-unit neighborhood called Columbia Shores is taking its place.

Graders began sculpting the site, which borders Pasco’s Broadmoor area, about a month ago. Developers and the Pasco Chamber of Commerce kicked it all off with an official groundbreaking on May 9.

Time to sell

Lura and Fred Harris, their children, their children’s children and more made the curve on Court Street their home for generations. One Harris grandson still lives nearby, on a separate parcel.

But by 2019, they were wrestling with the family legacy.

The farm was down to 45 acres. The land was held in a trust with a large number of beneficiaries. Developers were knocking on their door, offering astonishing sums as fast-growing Pasco sparked demand for ever more places to build.

The family decided it was time to simplify. They hired a local auction house, Musser Bros., to handle the sale.

“It’s time to settle the trust,” Lurene Harris Fleshman, who grew up at the farm and raised her own children there, told the Tri-City Herald on the eve of the auction.

It was a sensational listing.

The federal government controls much of the Tri-Cities shoreline, making it off-limits to development. The Harris parcels came with 450 feet of waterfront and room for up to 600 homes.

Musser Bros. anticipated it would sell to a home or condo developer eager to capitalize on the “picturesque” location, the Tri-City Herald reported in a run-up to the auction.

And that’s what happened.

SG Land Management of Kennewick, held by Ruslan Gorbatyuk and Peter Strizhak, paid $5 million in a deal that closed in 2020.

In the intervening years, SG worked with RP Development, led by Steve Bauman, and Pro Made Homes (PMH) to create a plan for the prized site. Bauman is also a current Franklin County commissioner.

Columbia Shores began working its way through the planning process in 2021. The first grading permits were issued this spring. Jacob Gonzalez, Pasco’s community and economic development director, said the city worked closely with the developer and is pleased by the balance of homes and open space.

Farm to neighborhood

Columbia Shores will feature 498 two-story townhomes and three single-family homes on the waterfront.

West Court runs through the property and Harris Road serves as its northern boundary. Interstate 182 is to the east.

A mix of public and private roads and walking trails will knit the neighborhood together, along with dog parks, a fitness center and other amenities, according to both marketing materials and environmental review documents.

The site plan includes 86 townhouse buildings, with five to six units per building. About 18% of the property is reserved for walking paths and common areas, which will be owned and maintained by a homeowner’s association.

The neighborhood will develop in four phases. The first, will see construction of 106 townhomes and the luxury three houses, followed by 117 townhomes in the second phase, 125 in the third and 150 in the fourth.

Development will take about five years and should wrap by 2030.

The city of Pasco will provide water and sewer service, and Franklin PUD will provide power.

PMH is collecting names of potential buyers for townhomes, which will be priced in the “$300,000” range.

Individual homes will range from 1,600 to about 2,300 square feet and will have three or four bedrooms and 2-1/2 bathrooms. The initial round of construction will include a model home at West Court Street and Harris, named for the farm.

Construction begins this fall and the first homes will be ready for buyers by the end of the year.

Colin Hastings, executive director for the Pasco chamber, said Columbia Shores is the kind of development the community needs to keep up with growth. “There’s a need for affordable, nice housing,” he said.

Pasco’s westward march

When the Harris family first arrived on West Court Street, the area was very isolated and very difficult to reach. There were no city utilities or streets offering easy access to Kennewick or Richland.

Crossing the Columbia meant taking a ferry or circling back to Pasco to use the old (and long ago demolished) green bridge.

The blue bridge opened in 1954 and the cable bridge in 1978. Both improved connections with Kennewick, but west Pasco remained off the beaten path.

That changed in late 1984 when I-182 opened and connected Pasco and Richland via two bridges. The new freeway made it possible for people to live in Pasco and commute to Richland, and vise versa.

Fred Harris, it should be noted, was delighted by construction of the Glenn C. Lee and Sam Volpentest spans near his farm.

The 90-something “haunted” the construction zone. Workers nicknamed him “sidewalk superintendent.” The Harris patriarch lived to see the bridges open to traffic and died shortly after his 100th birthday, in 1987.

The transformation of a mid-century farm into a dense neighborhood with hundreds of townhomes fits into the larger picture for Pasco, long one of Washington’s fastest growing communities.

Pasco’s current population stands at 81,800, with four out of every five Franklin County residents calling it home. It is expected to grow to 116,000 by 2040, according to the Benton Franklin Council of Governments, the regional planning agency.

The Broadmoor area, which borders the Harris/Columbia Shores property, is being remade to accommodate growth. A $4 million city sewer project is enabling dense development.

The Broadmoor Boulevard Interchange is getting a $7 million makeover, part of a larger $40 million investment by the city in the area to encourage residential, retail, recreational and other development.

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