The short answer is it depends on the development, but generally the small-scale stuff (one or two lots) are private individuals. What neighborhood is this? Hough is going apeshit with get-rich-quick investors who are buying the crappiest-looking houses from the oldest and poorest, then jacking them up to add basements, gutting them and then doing them up in "corporate funky" landscaping and colors. At least three houses had this happen to them between Hough Elementary and the downtown post office.

When it is a single house it is usually a single "flipper" while the two-lot or apartment-building condo conversions are usually builders working with a single landlord looking to get out of rentals. More than a block (such as west of Kauffman or with the new "Arnada Commons" and stuff such as RiverWest that will go in south of The Academy) is big-time developers with budgets in the millions.

None of these people wiill live in these, but they are often the only way single people or young families can afford anything in this market. Census tract 421 had the most drastic infill between 2000-2004, I believe, and Steve Burdick estimates 3000 new residential units downtown in the next few years. The Esther Short buildup was only the beginning. Wait until you see what they do with the old Boise Cascade site.

This gentrification is one of the main reasons we need to get a food co-op built now. In a few years it may not be fiscally feasible, and all we'll get are upscale wine shops and charcouteries for the influx of retirees.

VancouverFood.org