Developers start on $6 million luxury Richland apartments near Columbia River

The foundation has been laid for the development of a luxury apartment complex in north Richland.

In addition to having beer on tap and a coffee bar, the $6 million project will include a clubhouse, sauna, bike repair station and other amenities targeting high-end renters.

The owner expects the site at 250 Battelle Blvd. will likely appeal particularly to employees at the Hanford site and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

“There is an enormous employment base up there, but not a lot of housing,” said Idaho-based Dave Gintz, owner of Weyerhauser Apartments LLC that bought the undeveloped 4-plus-acre site in 2018.

The company is not owned by Weyerhaeuser timber company. Instead, Gintz created the company in 2017 when he was working on a deal to buy the Weyerhaeuser Mansion in Tacoma to turn it into a multi-family project — and the name was misspelled on the paperwork.

The official ownership name for the Richland apartments remains but the project will bear the working name of the Willow Pointe luxury community it borders along the Columbia River.

The first phase, which kicked off in recent weeks, is for a 30-unit building and is expected to be finished in about nine months.

The second phase will include a 26-unit complex along with the community spaces. The final phase is a 70-unit building.

The project in its entirety will be done in about 18 months.

Cedar and Sage in Suncadia is the builder on the Willow Pointe Apartments.

The units will be one and two bedrooms with rent ranging from $1,200 and $1,400 per month.

There is some consideration for the final phase to include studio apartments and three bedroom units, but that is not decided, Gintz said.

He expects the development of a website and reservations for the rentals to be available in three to four months.

The fair market rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Benton County is about $880, according to the Housing and Urban Development department. However, that is based data such as average income and is not the going rate — which has topped a bit over $1,000 for a one-bedroom.

Project redesign

Ginz said that the gap from the land purchase to the start of development was because of a decision to redesign the apartment buildings.

The first plans submitted to the city of Richland were for a 54-unit building, but he said the permits were pulled back in summer 2018.

“Based on the feedback from residents not wanting such a monstrosity, we redesigned it so a smaller building is butting up against the townhouses,” he said.

His company is wrapping up a 50-townhome community next to the apartments that also were part of the plan when his company bought the land.

He said that just four homes remain to build, and two are sold already.

The rest have a 100 percent occupancy rate and the 1,700- to 4,000-square-foot townhouses have sold for $310,000 to $600,000.

Richland has seen several new apartment projects started in the past two years.

The city of Richland approved the lower-income, tax credit-financed Copper Mountain project last year.

The units are under construction at 2555 Bella Coola Lane in the Badger Mountain South area.

Also, about 100 higher-end units are going in at Park Place at 650 George Washington Way.

And in 2018, the city issued permits for the final 240 units of the 640-unit Badger Canyon Apartments.