On Oct. 14, the Port of Vancouver USA’s Board of
Commissioners approved the sale of 9.6 acres in an industrial park it owns to steel
tubing manufacturer Maruichi Northwest, a subsidiary of Maruichi American Corp.
The buyer plans to create an advanced manufacturing facility
that would become the first development in the Port of Vancouver USA’s Centennial
Industrial Park, a 108-acre light-industrial site in southwestern Clark County.
Maruichi Northwest says it plans to invest more than $30
million in land, facilities and equipment for a structural steel tubing mill
and that it expects to initially hire 20 to 25 workers to manufacture
structural and ornamental steel components.
“It makes a lot of sense for Maruichi to locate at the Port
of Vancouver,” port CEO Todd Coleman said in a statement regarding the sale.
“Farwest and Genie are big local customers, we’re looking at an estimated 5,900
hours of longshore labor on the docks per year, and we’ve also talked about
working with existing tenants like TriStar Transload to meet Maruichi’s rail
loading needs. It’s a smart move all around.”
Facility construction is expected to begin in spring 2015,
with full completion and operation expected in late 2015 or early 2016.
“(Maruichi) has been thinking about this Northwest operation
for a long time, I would say more than 10 years,” Maruichi American Corp.
president Sho Morita said. “It wasn’t a question of if, it was a question of
where, because the time has come.
The port and Maruichi say they expect to begin the process
of selling and developing the property later this fall.
