Osprey Pointe development is poised to take flight this spring

Osprey Pointe’s developer says the Pasco project years in the making will be the likes of which the Tri-Cities has never seen.

Eight-story buildings. Underground parking, even for detached condominiums. A splash park that will be converted to a hockey rink in the winter months. All mixed in with a combination of commercial, residential and park space along the Columbia River.

“There’s millions of dollars invested already,” James Sexton told the Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business.

And all these novel features are among the reasons Sexton has yet to break ground.

The list of hurdles facing the project has been long. The city of Pasco had to update its comprehensive plan and adopt the necessary building codes. The back-and-forth on state codes for natural gas created uncertainty. The delays and limitations of the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated all of the challenges since Sexton and his company JMS Construction | Development partnered with the Port of Pasco five years ago.

“We’re all anxious to get it going,” said Randy Hayden, the port’s outgoing executive director.

But while no groundbreaking is yet scheduled, it does look like the invites could be going out sooner rather than later.

Sexton recently updated the port’s board of commissioners on the project’s development and there is optimism that a groundbreaking for the first phase of construction – made up of high-rise and standalone condos – could happen as soon as April.

City planning officials agree, as long as some final details are ironed out in the coming weeks.

The 55-acre site sits just west of the port’s Big Pasco Industrial Center along the Columbia River. The only building on the site is a two-story office building, half of it occupied by the port’s offices. It’s surrounded by open ground all the way to the rivershore.

The buildout of Osprey Pointe is one of the port’s strategic goals

Sexton’s plans for the site would create a community with 962 residential units, dozens of commercial spaces, including a large Market Hall with wine tastings and an art gallery and an event center with outdoor amphitheater. Sidewalks will be 16 feet wide and heated to melt snow and ice. The detached condos will have special elevators built into their one-car garages to provide underground storage for a second vehicle.

And prices for those condos, ranging from 1,350 to 1,600 square feet, would start at $300,000. It’s a price point Sexton acknowledged will keep his margins tighter than other housing projects, but he said it would secure the long-term viability of the community.

“We’re really trying to give you the most space we can for the best dollar,” he said.

Creating that space, though, has taken some heavy lifting. Extensive environmental studies were needed, including water table tests at each building site. Sexton said the state’s initial curtailing of natural gas utilities in new construction that have since been rejected by voters created additional strain.

For the city of Pasco, the unprecedented nature of the project meant it would take at least two years to amend the city’s comprehensive plan, rezone the property to allow the mixed uses and adopt new building codes.

“What he is doing is exciting,” said Richa Sigdel, the city’s deputy city manager and interim community and economic development director. “I think what it was more about was how ambitious this project is and where it’s located.”

That process was even slower given the inability to meet in-person during the pandemic and the turnover in city staff over the years, Sexton said, but he appreciated their effort to work with him.

“If this were Seattle, it would take 10 years to get to this point,” he said.

Sigdel said some work on utilities is all that remains before construction begins, and she said those can be resolved in time for a spring groundbreaking.

It’s expected to take 13 years for Osprey Pointe to be fully built out, but Sexton said once he’s able to break ground the activity won’t stop. The first phase of condos and commercial/office space is expected to take two years to complete, but the second phase will start while that is ongoing.

“We’ll be letting people know,” Sexton said of the future groundbreaking. “We’ll have a party.”