Weyerhaeuser building apartments at north Richland's Willow Pointe | Tri-City Herald

Weyerhaeuser Apartments will build a 58-unit apartment complex packed with upscale touches near the Columbia River in north Richland.

The project will include a clubhouse, pool and other features and will likely target well-heeled renters looking to live near their jobs at WSU Tri-Cities, the Hanford site, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Energy Northwest and more.

Tacoma-based Weyerhaeuser Apartments paid nearly $1.6 million to acquire the undeveloped portions of Willow Pointe, a luxury community on the river at Richardson Road and Battelle Boulevard.

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The deal included a 4.37-acre site zoned for multifamily development, as well as three separate parcels with room for 27 townhomes that are owned by a related entity, Weyerhaeuser Village, also of Tacoma.

A Weyerhaeuser official confirmed the company will submit its apartment plans to the city of Richland in coming days.

The apartment site is bordered on two sides by the homes of Willow Pointe, which form an L around the north and east sides. and east.

The Willow Point project promises to bring luxury rentals to a neighborhood where duplex-style homes that sell for $500,000 or more.

It also contributes to the changing nature of Richland’s far north end, where residences are taking their place alongside major employers. Willow Pointe is one example. The Commons at Innovation Center apartment complex near PNNL is another.

To the south, the first student residences are taking shape at the Washington State University Tri-Cities Campus, where Pullman-based Campus Pointe Developers LLC is building the first phase of a seven-part development that will add a 713-bed student apartment project to campus.

The first phase, called The Breselford Vineyards, is expected to open in August. The developer, Dabco, began accepting rental applications this week.

Even with a slight easing in vacancy rates in 2017, there is no shortage of demand for rental housing in the Tri-Cities, posing a challenge to renters of all income brackets.

The vacancy rate in the Tri-Cities was 3.3 percent last fall, a full point looser than a year earlier, according to the fall 2017 apartment survey conducted by the University of Washington’s Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies.

The center is surveying property managers this month for its spring survey.

The average Tri-City rent was $863 a month last year. However, rents for newer Class A units in Richland can easily consume $925 or more a month.