Pasco, Washington, Real Estate: What You Need to Know

Pasco, Washington, is at the southwestern edge of Franklin County, and serves as the county seat. Pasco's history is largely agricultural, and there are still large acre-plus tracts of land around. Pasco was also once a large railroad hub, and in fact, the city was named by a Northern Pacific engineer named Virgil Borgue, who helped build a railroad near Cerro de Pasco, in Peru.

The eastern side of Pasco is where the Franklin County Courthouse sits, and most city services have their headquarters nearby. Homes were built close to the city center and mostly spread south and west, to and along the Columbia River. Our community college, Columbia Basin College, is in Pasco, as is our local airport. Delta, United, Alaska/Horizon and Allegiant Air serve the Pasco-Tri-Cities Airport (PSC if you're making flight reservations!).

Court Street is one of the major thoroughfares in Pasco, and runs parallel to Hwy. 182, which is east-west. Numbered streets run north-south, and there is a HUGE commercial area along Road 68, just north of the highway.

In terms of real estate, Pasco was a rather sleepy little community until the mid-1990's. That's when the city built a new minor league baseball stadium for the Tri-City Posse baseball team. (The Posse are gone and now we have the Tri-City Dust Devils, a Colorado Rockies affiliate team.) When the new stadium was built, a construction company called AHO built a subdivision nearby called Sunny Meadows. All the streets had a baseball theme (Comiskey, Wrigley, Fenway, Robinson, Gehrig) and had great starter homes built at incredibly affordable prices. AHO is still building in West Pasco and doing so at good prices. They are primarily starter homes; it's not the kind of house you grow old in; the quality is simply not there. Heading further west across Pasco, crossing the Road 68 corridor, along the north side of the highway, AHO built more homes, and other starter-home builders built, too.

A new elementary school, Maya Angelou Elementary was built to handle the huge increase in school age children which flooded this part of Pasco, and almost overnight, a new high school was needed. Pasco High (Pasco Pride!) has a strong pull on its alums, and for awhile, the city toyed with the idea of building a new building for 9th and 10th grades, and having the 11th and 12th graders graduate from Pasco High. In so doing, people who had stayed in the city specifically in order to have the next generation also be Pasco High graduates, would have their wishes fulfilled. However, a new high school in west Pasco is being planned. It will be called Chiawana High and should open in August 2009. West Pasco is also home to Tri-Cities Prep, a private Catholic school.

There has been an enormous amount of building throughout west Pasco, north and south of the highway, to the west and east of Rds. 68 and 100. There are new homes all over! The extensive amount of housing in the area creates less expensive housing. You can buy more square footage for less than in Richland and in Kennewick.  I've had clients fall in love with the tempo of life, the large lots in some cases, and the convenient location of the city.

Between the river and the highway, more upscale, less starter-type homes have sprung up in scattered Pasco subdivisions. Drive west along Court St., beyond Rd. 100, and you'll see fascinating different architectural styles -- Victorians and moderns and Cape Cods. The riverfront properties range from modest bungalows to spectacular mansions. Court Street runs under the highway and along the river. Just north of Hwy. 182, there are some amazing homes, and a gravel quarry used by a nearby cement company. It applied for a permit to make asphalt, which might have created noxious fumes and would definitely have brought property values down. I believe the most recent news told of the city denying the permit.

Pascoites really feel a great deal of pride in their city, and strive to make it a friendly place in neighborhoods all over.

Looking to buy or sell a home in Pasco, WA? Call me today for personal service! 509-430-5342