Heavy-equipment auctioneer Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers has purchased a more than 200-acre site in Napavine for a permanent auction facility to replace its smaller Olympia site, about 22 miles north of the new location.
Plans for the Napavine site call for auction facilities and display areas to be developed by a targeted opening in the summer of 2012. The project will include a 33,000-square-foot auction building with seating for 750 people and a “virtual ramp theater,” where photos of equipment will be projected onto a large screen, with seating for 300.
Ritchie Bros. has conducted numerous public auctions in Clark County. One of its most recent sales was the 2009 auction of construction equipment from Washougal-based George Schmid & Sons Inc., which closed in July 2009.
