You can't take your eye off Vancouver. Not the gorgeous one in British Columbia, but the other one. The Vancouver that rests on the north shore of the Columbia River across from -- and in the shadow of -- Portland, the city of many parks and microbreweries, and of trendy neighborhoods connected by light rail.

This is Washington's Vancouver. Or, as Mayor Royce Pollard immediately tells you in a rush to prevent any thoughts of Canada from entering your head, it's "America's Vancouver." And evidence suggests that, while it lacks the cosmopolitan verve of Canada's Vancouver, it is no longer sitting in the shadow of Portland. You can't take your eye off Vancouver -- a city of 160,800 people that began as a fur-trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1824 -- because everywhere you look, a new major project pops up. The downtown ropes in office and condo projects and plans a $1.5 billion waterfront redevelopment project. Land in and around the city is plentiful and cheaper than in Portland, inviting more people and more businesses to move in and to complement the renaissance under way downtown. The cost of living in Vancouver is lower than that in many other metro areas on the West Coast, and the city's well-regarded school system and affordable housing attract middle- class families.

Stumbling blocks remain. Regional leaders are trying to decide the best way to reduce traffic congestion between the Portland area and southwest Washington -- and to boost economic development -- by fixing the decrepit Interstate 5 bridge over the Columbia River. It's no small task: 10 local, state and federal government agencies are involved in the project. And Vancouver is not an island: The nation's battered real estate and credit markets have slowed construction of homes in Clark County, one of the fastest-growing parts of the state in recent years as people from Portland moved north hunting for more affordable housing.

Nevertheless, this is Vancouver's time for a number of reasons, says Bart Phillips of the Columbia River Economic Development Council. One is that the city has a "compelling" downtown story to tell potential investors. Another is that the next five to 10 years may see Vancouver, based on current population trends, move from being Washington's fourth-largest city to its second-largest, eclipsing Spokane.

The city's rejuvenation began in the late 1990s with a galvanizing event in Esther Short Park, four square blocks in the center of downtown that, through years of neglect, had become less of a park and more of a place you avoided. Pollard was trying to gather public support for reclaiming the park by inviting citizens to have lunch with him there and by having city employees regularly lunch there, too. One day, with some city firefighters on hand, Pollard felt something ram into his back. He turned around to face a "5-foot- 3 transient fella with a shopping cart."

"Yeah," Pollard recalls saying, "what are you doing?"

"Are you the mayor?"

"Yeah."

"Get out of my park."

"What did you say?"

The man shoved Pollard in the chest. Two firefighters caught the mayor as he fell back. The man took off, but the police tracked him down and arrested him. The next day, the local newspaper splashed the attack across its pages.

RECLAIMING THE CITY

The community rallied around the mayor and the park. The city bought up blighted properties and sold them to developers. George Propstra, who opened the first Burg- erville USA restaurant in Vancouver, gave $3 million to help renovate Esther Short Park, including building a new public square. Other key projects came on line. In 1998, Elie Kassab, president of Vancouver-based Prestige Development, invested $10 million to build the City Center 12 Cinemas, featuring the iconic Northwest eatery Rose's Deli and Bakery, which became a regional attraction. In 2001, Killian Pacific, a longtime local commercial real-estate developer (owned by George Killian and his son Lance Killian), built the West Coast Bank Building, which has 61,000 square feet of commercial space, 23 luxury condos and a 267-space parking garage. Killian Pacific and the city worked together on the project, with the city helping to remove nearby derelict buildings. Ultimately, the city invested $18.5 million in cleaning up the park and building up the central city, which attracted another $300 million in private investment in the core. Along the way, officials streamlined the development- permitting process, began regularly meeting with business owners and forged a pro-developer attitude: "To always remember who actually builds your city. It's not the city," says Eric Holmes, the city's economic develop ment director.