Mental health agency picks Vancouver site. (Columbia River Mental Health Services)

Columbia River Mental Health Services has secured Clark County's largest chunk of available office space for a future mental health campus.

The nonprofit agency has leased the 49,000-square-foot building that currently houses the U.S. Forest Service, at the southwest corner of State Route 500 and Northeast Andresen Road in Vancouver. Columbia River also expects to quickly exercise an option to buy the building and its 8-acre site from owners Tom and Jerry Stern for $3.2 million.

"We are very, very short on space right now," said Debi Merrill, Columbia River's director of finance and operations. This transaction will allow the agency to consolidate four separate …