Electric vehicle service center coming to Vancouver
Documents hint that business could be Tesla
By Anthony Macuk, Columbian business reporter
Published: March 28, 2021, 6:04am
Drake Real Estate Services has submitted a preliminary application to develop an electric vehicle service center in Vancouver. The tenant isn't named, but a building diagram included in the packet shows what appear to be Tesla cars parked out front. (Drake Real Estate Services)
A developer has proposed plans for an electric vehicle service center in the Fourth Plain corridor, and some of the documentation hints that the business could be a new location for California-based electric vehicle maker Tesla.
The application was submitted to the city of Vancouver in mid-March. It outlines plans for a single-story, roughly 32,500-square-foot building on a 3.1-acre parcel that includes the adjacent addresses of 6916 and 6924 N.E. Fourth Plain Blvd. A pre-application conference is scheduled for 9 a.m. April 15.
The building will be used for the "sale, service, maintenance, charging, repair, delivery and storage of new and pre-owned electric automobiles, energy products, and related parts and accessories," according to the project narrative document.
The site is currently developed with a parking lot and handful of smaller commercial buildings; the site plan indicates those structures would be removed as part of the proposed project. The new parking lot would include 156 parking spaces and 25 charging stalls.
The narrative only refers to an "Electric Car Service Center," and the name Tesla does not appear in the documents. However, the packet includes an elevation diagram of the proposed building that depicts what appear to be several Tesla vehicles parked in front.
It also shows a row of what appear to be Tesla supercharging stations behind the building, and the structure is depicted with an exterior design and color scheme similar to what Tesla uses at many of its existing service center locations.
The applicant is listed as Colorado-based Drake Real Estate Services, a company that appears to have done prior work to establish at least one other Tesla location. A 2018 quarterly update newsletter published by Colorado-based Maxwell Builders states the company worked on projects including "the first automotive sales/service facility for Tesla in Colorado – built for Drake Real Estate Services."
Drake Real Estate Services managing partner Jon Hauser declined to comment. Tesla did not reply to a request for comment.
If the proposed Vancouver project is indeed a Tesla service center, it would be the first Tesla business location in Clark County and the third in the Portland metro area, following a dealership in the Washington Square Mall in Tigard, Ore., and a combined dealership and service center near Portland's South Waterfront district.
Tesla is based in Palo Alto, Calif., and has been expanding rapidly in the past year; the company's fourth-quarter 2020 report listed 523 store and service locations in total, up from 433 at the end of 2019. The automaker's website lists five service centers in Washington, one of which is in Spokane and the rest of which are in the Seattle metro area.
The company currently operates two high-speed supercharger stations in Clark County, one at the Vancouver Mall and the other at the Salmon Creek Fred Meyer.
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Anthony Macuk
Columbian business reporter