The Port of Vancouver would sell 9.6 acres to a company seeking to build a manufacturing plant under a proposal headed to the port’s Board of Commissioners on Tuesday. The planned 160,000-square-foot steel tubing mill could employ up to 50 people.
Port staff is advising Commissioners Nancy Baker, Jerry Oliver and Brian Wolfe to approve a purchase and sale agreement between the port and Maruichi Northwest LLC. Under the deal, the port would sell 9.6 acres of its Centennial Industrial Park to Maruichi, which would construct and launch operations “sometime in late 2015 or early 2016,” according to the staff recommendation.
Commissioners will take up the matter during their regular public meeting at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, at the port’s office, 3103 N.W. Lower River Road.
The port’s asking price is not yet known. A fair market value appraisal “is part of the due diligence process,” Abbi Russell, a spokeswoman for the port, said in an email to The Columbian. The due diligence process would follow the commission’s approval of the purchase and sale agreement Tuesday. That process includes settling environmental, engineering and permitting issues before the deal closes. “We’ll know the selling price before we close on the property, sometime this winter,” Russell said.
The port and Maruichi — a subsidiary of Japan-based MKK, a multinational corporation with locations in the U.S., Mexico, China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam — entered into a letter of intent on April 28 to explore the land sale.
Maruichi would invest at least $30 million in its planned facility, including property, buildings and manufacturing equipment, according to the port.
The company’s mill would fabricate products, such as bridge railings and metal shopping carts, Russell said. As many as 50 new jobs would be created in advanced manufacturing, which involves automation and the use of cutting-edge materials.
Russell said the new positions are family-wage jobs. Citing the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, she said the Vancouver-Portland-Hillsboro region is No. 10 in the U.S. for structural steel manufacturing and fitting jobs, and that the average annual pay for such positions in the region is $40,230.
Maruichi’s investment “will encourage further development” of the Centennial Industrial Park, Russell said. The 9.6 acres the company would purchase is part of the 58-acre, shovel-ready portion of the port’s 108-acre industrial park.
‘Major customer’
The proposed agreement with Maruichi echoes a deal commissioners approved with Farwest Steel Corp. about four years ago. In that previous case, the port sold land to Farwest so it could build a steel fabrication plant.
The port typically leases land instead of selling it. Russell said “ownership of property was a condition of Maruichi to locate its facility” at the port. She added, “It’s been our plan to either sell or lease land at (the Centennial Industrial Park), so this fits with our intent for the property.”
Similar to the Farwest deal, the Maruichi proposal also comes with several conditions and restrictions.
Before the deal closes, for example, port commissioners must declare the property that would be sold as surplus and no longer needed for port purposes. Such a decision would come as part of a review and modification of the port’s comprehensive plan.
Also, the port would impose several restrictions on Maruichi’s use of the land. Those limits would preserve the port’s right to repurchase the property if any of the following things happen:
o Construction of the project fails to begin within 12 months or operations fail to begin within 24 months.
o Minimum employment levels are not maintained.
o Operations on the property cease.
o The property is offered for sale.
Under additional restrictions, all Maruichi imports and exports would flow through the port; the company would maintain the property for industrial use; and the company would meet stormwater regulations. Russell said the import-export requirement “supports longshore jobs and brings revenue into the port, which we can turn around and invest in infrastructure, and other investments that support operations at the port and jobs in the community.”
Russell said Farwest Steel is “a major customer of Maruichi,” a situation that supports the development of a cluster of companies in the steel/metal business at the port.
