Brian Dioguardi got a text message just before noon Sept. 13. Then another. Four or five more followed in quick succession.

Friends wanted to know if Dioguardi, the owner of Baldy’s Barbeque, had heard the news. Oregon State University-Cascades Campus had just picked the site for its four-year university, and it was right in the backyard of Baldy’s west Bend restaurant.

“I probably got six or seven emails and texts,” Dioguardi said, “people wanting to let me know, telling me to get ready to be busy.”

Bend city leaders say the university project could give Central Oregon more than a four-year college. The college is already seen as a lift for west Bend businesses between Simpson and Newport avenues. And OSU-Cascades is just one of several big projects in the works.

Three years from now, west Bend figures to be home to a recreation pavilion with a winter ice-skating rink, a whitewater surf park, a 114-room hotel near the Old Mill District, a 34-acre park in NorthWest Crossing’s neighborhood expansion and a 45,000-square-foot grocery store off of Southwest Colorado Avenue.

The Galveston Avenue business corridor could also get a major renovation in coming years, though no firm decisions have been made.

“Each of these is going to be important to the city,” Bend Mayor Jim Clinton said. “Not just the west side.”

The picture isn’t all rosy. City public works officials are racing the clock to upgrade Bend’s water and sewage systems. They’re also looking to control expected traffic increases as the projects spring up. The city is months away from starting a major upgrade to its westside regional pump station on Northwest Portland Avenue, said Tom Hickmann, Bend engineering and infrastructure planning director.

As Bend’s population boomed from about 20,000 in 1990 to nearly 80,000 today, water and sewer infrastructure has been an ongoing issue. Most of west Bend’s wastewater goes through the westside pump station. Upgrading it to handle more wastewater is crucial if west Bend is going to keep growing, Hickmann said. Public works officials hope to start the upgrade next spring, and have it done in mid-2015.

“You have some pretty serious economic implications if we aren’t able to continue to expand our ability to serve (west Bend) with sewer capacity,” Hickmann said.

The city also is vying for a state grant to fund an Integrated Transportation and Land Use Plan study for central and west Bend. The study would pinpoint ideal roadway improvements and places to target more pedestrian and bike traffic, said Nick Arnis, Bend transportation engineering manager.

Officials expect to know early next month if the city will get grant funding for the project.

West Bend’s ‘evolution’

Over the last two decades, change has seemingly been the only constant in west Bend. Clinton moved to Bend in 1995, and remembers the west side of town basically ending at 14th Street.

“The change now isn’t as significant as what happened in the past 10-15 years,” Clinton said. The proposed changes “are more like an evolution.”

The evolution could be lucrative. Several large pieces of undeveloped land near the college site became much more attractive when the OSU-Cascades site was announced, said Darren Powderly, president of Compass Commercial Real Estate Services.

Compass is talking with a developer considering building on 10 commercial acres adjacent to the Safeway on Southwest Century Drive, Powderly said. A college just across the street would make it an extremely valuable piece of property.

OSU-Cascades plans to open in fall 2015, with new buildings likely being added to the campus in the following years.

School officials project 3,000 to 5,000 students enrolled by 2025. As the college gets up and running, it could bring new companies to Bend, just as OSU’s main campus in Corvallis drew major employers like Hewlett Packard.

“The OSU-Cascades campus is going to be an economic engine for Bend,” Powderly said.

He said the business parks along Southwest Colorado Avenue, products of the 2000-07 building boom, could be ideal homes for those companies. Nearly one-fifth of west Bend office buildings are vacant, according to a recent market survey by Compass.

Recruiting new businesses would create jobs. Five to 10 years out, it could spark new demand for office building construction in Bend, Powderly said.

Dioguardi is already wondering if he has enough space. The Baldy’s owner opened a Redmond restaurant in 2011 and expanded in east Bend last year. The business is less than 10 years old, but already employs 100 people in the summer and about 80 during other months. Thousands of hungry students walking around between September and June may alter those plans.

The college “will definitely change the dynamic of that area,” Dioguardi said. “I’m very excited.”