It’s mostly trees, plus a bit of beachhead.
There’s no access road, so you’ll need a kayak or possibly hip waders.
But if you’ve got a spirit of adventure and a yearning for a natural area to call your own, you could be the owner of the 13-acre Fox Island north of the Van Giesen bridge.
The property is for sale through Century 21 Tri-Cities.
“It’s a very beautiful island. It’s like a little natural oasis in the middle of these two cities (Richland and West Richland),” said Dakota Ide, a real estate broker for Century 21, who’s handling the listing.
The property doesn’t have any buildings on it, and it carries a flood plain zone designation.
That means its uses are somewhat limited, but agriculture, private stables, parks, playgrounds, golf courses and a wildlife refuge are among the possibilities.
The listing price is $399,000.
The property’s current owner, George Fox, lives in Ohio and is looking to liquidate some assets, Ide said. Ide doesn’t know much about Fox, but property records list him and Beverly J. Fox as the island’s owners since 1959.
George Fox served in the U.S. Air Force in the early ’50s and then moved to Richland, where he spent nine years working for General Electric as an industrial engineer, reactor supervisor and computer manager, according to his LinkedIn profile. General Electric took over operation of the Hanford site from Dupont in the late 1940s and oversaw a period of expansion.
After Fox moved on from Hanford in 1966, he worked in the Middle East and Europe before ending up in Ohio, his LinkedIn profile said.
Ide said the island property has been listed since July, and it’s been fun to take in the reaction to an entire island listed for sale in the Tri-Cities – something that’s almost unheard of.
“It’s unique, it’s exciting. (Selling an island) is something people hardly ever get to do,” he said. “When people hear about it, they’re like, ‘There’s an island being sold?’ It’s fun to hear what they’d do with it.”
While there are plenty of possibilities, Ide sees it as an idyllic place to get away.
“It’s a nice little spot to hide away in,” he said. “It would be a fun place to enjoy.”