West Richland Real Estate Blog

If you’re looking for something fun before the fireworks shows (which won’t start until about 10 pm), don’t forget that the Mid Columbia Symphony will be celebrating the 4th of July with a free concert in West Richland. It’ll start at 7 pm on Friday. The symphony will be playing pops and patriotic songs to celebrate Independence Day. Guaranteed good time with great music!

Wow, time flies when you’re avoiding long lines at the other post offices.

I was in the West Richland Post Office earlier today and saw that they have a little sign on the wall promoting their upcoming 10th Anniversary. And I didn’t really believe it had been open that long, because it opened just before Cari and I moved to West Richland … which was 10 years ago! Crazy how fast that 10 years has gone.

I remember when I was working in Kennewick many years ago, and in an attempt to avoid the long lines at the post offices in Pasco and Richland, I’d drive all the way out here to West Richland to mail Christmas gifts and such. Even with the extra time in the car, I know I got back to work more quickly because the lines were much shorter at this post office.

Anyway, the celebration is from 9 am to 4 pm on July 10th at the West Richland post office.

As far as I know, the West Richland population is a little more than 10,000 these days. Last night, that many people poured into the Bombing Range Sports Complex for the 8th annual Hogs & Dogs event. Yep — the organizers are estimating a crowd of 10,000 people this year. Holy you-know-what!! (And they say they sold 4,000 hot dogs!)

There were rows and rows of motorcycles — seemed like mostly Harley Davidsons from what I could tell. There were apparently classic cars on display, too, but the McGee family must not have fought through the crowds to that part of the park. We did enjoy hot dogs, chips, and soda pop for dinner … listened to a little music … saw some friends … and caught the very end of a stunt motorcycle performance by Jason Britton.

All in all, West Richland should be proud. This is a fun event and we’re glad we stopped by this year. But if it keeps growing … how many more people can they fit at the Bombing Range Sports Complex? I guess that’s for someone else to figure out.

I took some pictures last night and posted them on Flickr: Hogs and Dogs 2008 - West Richland, WA. Here are a couple of my favorites…enjoy!

Concerts at the Pavilion is one of the most popular ongoing West Richland events, and it’s a great way for a family (or just yourself) to spend a Friday night. Our most recent city utility bill had a flyer with the full schedule of concerts for this summer. Here’s the list:

June 20: Bram Brata & OK 2 Botay (steel drums, calypso/reggae/Caribbean music)
July 4: Mid-Columbia Symphony & Richland Light Opera Co. (An All-American musical tribute)
July 18: Ockham’s Razor (Seattle-based Celtic fusion band)
August 1: Tingstad and Rumbel (Grammy Award-winning acoustic new age music)
August 8: Django’s Cadillac (Portland-based gypsy/swing/hot jazz band)
August 15: Deadwood Revival (bluegrass band from Bainbridge Island)
August 22: Wylie and the Wild West (country & western; the flyer says “world famous Yahoo yodeler” - for real??!!)
September 5: Romagossa Blu (acoustic rock)

The concerts begin each Friday at 7:00 pm at Flat Top Park. You can bring a blanket or lawn chair. In addition to the music, there’s also food and beverages available. Starting with the August 8th concert, there’ll be a family-friendly movie shown right after the concert.

For more info. about the Concerts at the Pavilion series, contact the City of West Richland: 509-967-3431.

I’m no economist, but it seems to me that West Richland’s economy is going really strong these days. When I go out and ride my bike around Bird Hill during the day, there are still all kinds of new houses being built. (I’ll leave it to my wife to write more about all that real estate stuff.) Rural roads are being paved. You may have read about the new wine village that’s going in along Keene Rd. Kadlec Medical Center is building a new clinic.

There’s all kinds of new development and new businesses starting up in West Richland, and a lot of it is happening up on Bird Hill. I took a few photos last week during one of those bike rides. Have a look:

Paradise Plaza

This is Paradise Plaza, which is on Paradise Way behind the semi-new Yoke’s Supermarket. The businesses in here include an Avocado Mexican Grill and Allure Hair Studio. One of these days I want to try Avocado for lunch and see what it’s like.

Paradise Place

Paradise Place is another retail site in the same parking lot as Yoke’s. It’s at the corner of Paradise Way and Bombing Range Road. There’s a Sahara Pizza, a game store, and a coffee shop in this group of stores. Sahara Pizza is also on my list of things to try soon.

GESA Credit Union

Right across the street from Paradise Plaza and Paradise Place is a GESA Credit Union branch. That’s good — banks mean traffic, and traffic driving by the new retail sites has to be good for business.

76 Gas / Quiznos

And finally, right across Bombing Range Rd. from all of this is a new 76 gas station, with a Quiznos Restaurant inside, too. This is still under construction, but it doesn’t look like they have much left to do. I’m guessing it’ll be open any day now. I’ve already tried Quiznos plenty of times, and will certainly be eating there again now that it’s so close to home. Hopefully the gas prices won’t be too far out of line with what the other places around West Richland are charging.

There was also supposed to be a new 24-hour fitness center being built right next to the gas station, but that seems to have been delayed or canceled altogether. Despite that, it’s pretty obvious that the West Richland economy is going strong. And it’s great to have some new shopping and eating options right here in the neighborhood.

We bought our house in West Richland in 1998, and quickly learned that the previous owner was a real green thumb. She planted all kinds of plants and bushes (some quite exotic) around the property, plus several fruit trees — an apple tree and an apricot tree on the side of the house, and two cherry trees in the front yard, one on each side of the driveway.

Every summer, we invite our West Richland neighbors to come pick as many cherries as they want from our trees. But our weather has been very strange this spring: colder than usual, and a couple very late freezes overnight. There have been a bunch of news stories about the weather and its impact on cherries in Washington, like this one from the AP:

Fresh cherry pie on the Fourth of July? Maybe not on the East Coast this year, and consumers can blame freezing spring temperatures in the Northwest.

An April cold snap damaged pockets of the five-state cherry-growing region, and farmers are estimating their crop will be down 15 percent to 20 percent this year. Even more significant: The harvest will fall later in the season, which could make it more difficult for East Coast supermarkets to get a full supply in time for the midsummer holiday.

On the bright side, the article goes on to say that this situation usually leads to bigger cherries. We’ll take that, and I’m sure our fellow West Richlanders will be happy, too. I took the photo above last night and our trees look fine. Not a lot of damage from the weather, at least as far as I can tell. They do look a little small right now, but that could be because they’re behind schedule. We usually start picking around the 2nd week of June, but these won’t be ready for another month at least. Such is life in West Richland when you’re an amateur cherry grower dealing with cold spring weather!