Drive east on SE 34th Street past 192nd Avenue and the chain-link fence is still there, running along a wall of Douglas fir that has shaded that stretch of road since before most of Fisher's Landing was subdivided. For years the story behind that fence was simple in the way rumors are simple: someone is going to build something back there eventually. That version of the story is no longer true, and it was never quite accurate to begin with. What sits behind the fence at the old Vancouver Innovation Center, the former Hewlett-Packard campus at 18110 SE 34th St., is not one project waiting on one decision. It is three separate projects, owned by three separate parties, moving on three separate clocks. If you live near it and only track "the VIC" as a single blur of someday, you are going to miss the parts that are already locked in and the one part where your input still matters.
The Land Split Into Three Owners Before It Split Into Three Projects
The easiest way to understand what's happening is to stop thinking of the VIC as a single sprawling parcel and start thinking of it as three transactions. The city of Vancouver now owns a 14.3-acre wooded slice in the northeast corner, purchased outright to become a public park. Evergreen Public Schools owns a separate 20-acre piece, acquired as part of the developer's 2023 revised master plan for a future middle school site. Everything else, including the southwest corner where new apartment buildings are now moving through city review, still belongs to the private developer. Three owners means three permitting paths, three funding sources, and three timelines that have nothing to do with each other. The park can open years before the apartments break ground, or the reverse. Nobody who tells you "the VIC is coming along" is actually describing one thing.
The Park Piece Already Closed, Quietly, in November
Of the three, the park is the furthest along, and the milestone already happened. The city agreed in July 2025 to pay $4.3 million for the 14.3-acre forested parcel, and on November 21, 2025, the deal closed and the city took formal possession. The land includes stands of old-growth trees the city has committed to preserving rather than clearing for the design.
Vancouver parks planner Perlick described the site ahead of the closing this way: "It's an exciting site, but it's a heavily wooded area, so we'll have some interesting design work." That is not boilerplate. A 14-acre forested lot is a genuinely different design problem than the flat, cleared parkland the city has built elsewhere in Vancouver, and it explains why the public design process has taken most of a year rather than a few months.
The Trail Loop Has One Public Meeting Left Before It's Locked
Here is the detail most neighbors miss because it started as a developer concept rather than a city promise. The idea of a two-mile perimeter trail circling the entire VIC site first surfaced in the developer's 2023 master plan revision, pitched alongside plans to sell the forested tract to the city so the trail could tie directly into public parkland. That concept has since been folded into the city's own park design process, which means the trail loop residents keep hearing about is not yet finalized design, it's still being shaped in public meetings.
The city's own project page lays out exactly where that process stands. An open house on August 15, 2026 gathered initial feedback on activities and amenities. The next open house, October 3, 2026, will present design concepts based on that feedback. The final open house, November 21, 2026, is where the city reviews the design before it's locked in and handed to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission for approval. If you have an opinion about where that trail should run relative to your street, or what the northeast corner park should include, October 3 is functionally your last real chance to shape it. After November 21, the design is done.
The School Land Changed Hands Years Before the Park Did
Less visible than the park, and rarely mentioned when neighbors talk about the VIC, is the 20 acres the developer sold to Evergreen Public Schools as part of that same 2023 master plan restructuring. That transaction predates the city's park purchase by roughly two years. There is no newer public timeline confirming when construction on a middle school might begin, and nothing in the more recent reporting on the park or the apartment filings updates that status. It's worth knowing the land exists and is already spoken for, separate from the acreage the city bought and separate from what the private developer still controls. Three owners really does mean three stories, and this is the one furthest from a public meeting schedule.
The Apartments Are the Piece Actually in Front of the City Right Now
The most recently active track is also the one least connected to parks or trails. In February 2026, developers submitted formal documents to the city showing five multifamily apartment buildings planned for the southwest corner of the campus, on the portion of the site that once housed HP's Vancouver division offices. That filing is the closest thing to hard evidence that the VIC's mixed-use vision, first sketched years ago, is moving from concept to something with plans in a city queue. It's also entirely separate from the park and trail timeline. Watching for construction fencing near the apartment corner tells you nothing about when the park two hundred yards away will open, and vice versa.
What's Actually on the Calendar This Fall
Setting the master plan aside, here's what's real and dated for Fisher's Landing residents between now and the end of the year:
- September 19, 2026, noon to 3 p.m. — The Fisher's Landing East Neighborhood Association hosts a free ice cream social with lawn games at The VIC.
- October 3, 2026 — City open house presenting design concepts for the new 14-acre park, based on feedback from the August session.
- October 17, 2026, 2 to 4 p.m. — FLENA's Fall Cleanup, with dumpsters brought in through a partnership with Vancouver Waste Connection for residents clearing out large items.
- November 21, 2026 — Final city open house reviewing the finished park design before it moves to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission for approval.
FLENA describes its own patch of the neighborhood simply as the place "where the Columbia River meets the shadow of Mount Hood," and the group's calendar is the most reliable ground-level source for what's actually scheduled here, more current than any master plan rendering.
The Corner That's Already Finished
While the park and the apartments are still working through public process, the retail corner at Fisher's Landing Marketplace on SE 164th Avenue has already settled into its current shape. New Seasons Market anchors the lot at 2100B SE 164th Ave and holds a sensory-friendly shopping hour every Thursday, with overhead announcements and music turned off and staff walkie-talkies kept low. Next door, Shake Shack opened its doors on April 16, 2025, taking over the space that had been Shari's Cafe and Pies and sharing its building with a Starbucks. It has no drive-thru, just a walk-up counter and indoor seating, and it's been open long enough now that it's less a novelty than a regular stop for a lot of east Vancouver evenings.
That contrast is the real takeaway. The dining corner most people associate with "what's new at Fisher's Landing" actually finished changing over a year ago. The land everyone assumes is still frozen behind a fence is the part with an actual closing date, a funded design process, and two more public meetings before the end of the year. Knowing which is which is the difference between vaguely following the VIC and actually being able to answer your neighbor's question the next time they ask what's really going on back there.
If you're weighing a move in Fisher's Landing, or already live here and want a clearer read on how a project like the VIC tends to affect a specific block over time, Leigh Calvert - Oxford Street Partners spends its days tracking exactly this kind of local detail across Clark County. Book a consultation and we'll walk you through what we're seeing on the ground, not just what's on a master plan rendering.
