Camas

The SkyWater Technology wafer fabrication facility, built originally as WaferTech, employs a substantial workforce and has drawn a layer of specialized supplier and support-tenant demand into Camas that doesn't exist in most Clark County submarkets. This creates a smaller but more specialized industrial and flex tenant pool, since suppliers to a semiconductor fab often need cleanroom-adjacent space or specific power and utility infrastructure that a generic warehouse building can't provide. Investors evaluating Camas industrial replacement property should confirm what infrastructure a building was built to support before assuming it fits fab-supplier tenant requirements.

Camas Meadows Business Park, developed along the SR-14 and I-205 approach to the city, holds most of Camas's newer office, flex, and light-commercial inventory, drawing tenants who want proximity to both the Camas employment base and the broader Vancouver-Portland metro across the Columbia River. This corridor has grown alongside the city's residential expansion east of downtown, and it functions as the practical commercial core for retail and service tenants serving the newer neighborhoods, separate from the historic mill-town core along the waterfront.

A typical Camas identification list might include:

• Flex and light-industrial space supporting the SkyWater supplier ecosystem
• Office and business-park product in Camas Meadows
• Retail pads serving the SR-14 growth corridor
• Multifamily near downtown Camas and Lacamas Lake

Camas sits close enough to the Interstate 205 bridge that some investors treat it as an extension of the greater Portland industrial and flex market rather than a standalone Clark County town, and Washington's lack of a state income tax continues to draw both residents and businesses across the river from Oregon. That cross-border dynamic supports steady demand for Camas commercial and multifamily property, but it also means local pricing tracks broader Portland-Vancouver metro trends more closely than it tracks smaller Clark County towns further from the river.

The historic downtown core along NE 4th Avenue, walkable to Lacamas Lake and the paper mill waterfront, has attracted smaller mixed-use and multifamily redevelopment distinct from the business-park product further east. Buildings here trade partly on the town's small-mill-town character and lake proximity, and investors should weigh that lifestyle-driven demand separately from the more utilitarian business-park and industrial categories when comparing candidates. The Georgia-Pacific mill's continued downtown operation means some nearby parcels still carry industrial noise, odor, or buffer considerations that a lakeside multifamily buyer should confirm before assuming a purely residential character for the surrounding blocks.

Given Camas's mix of specialized industrial, business-park, and lake-adjacent residential product, a 45-day identification list benefits from naming candidates across more than one category to avoid narrowing the search to a single thin niche like fab-supplier flex space. A qualified intermediary holds the relinquished-property proceeds and prepares exchange documentation so the investor does not take actual or constructive receipt of funds between the Camas sale and the replacement purchase, and title work should confirm any shared utility or easement arrangements tied to the SkyWater campus before a nearby parcel is finalized as a replacement. Investors should also confirm the specific 180-day closing timeline and any depreciation-recapture treatment with their tax advisor before the exchange agreement on a Camas replacement property is signed.