New Business Developments Hold Promise for 2010

By Tim Knapp, Wilsonville Mayor


As we start a new year, this is a good time to reflect on the past year and to look forward to plans for 2010.

The economic recession has impacted our business sector during the past year, as reflected by the high-profile closure of Joe’s Sporting Goods’ 300,000 square-foot corporate office and warehouse, InFocus downsizing and moving out of town, and the slower than expected residential development of the Villebois urban village. And a number of our local businesses have also encountered difficulties as overall consumer spending has decreased.

We will, however, persevere and as we look forward to 2010, there are some positive signs for the local economy:

• Fred Meyer stores will start construction this summer on the $70 million, 200,000-square-foot Old Town Square shopping center, located at the intersection of Wilsonville and Boones Ferry Roads. Fred Meyer’s parent company, Kroger Inc., has indicated that the Wilsonville Fred Meyer’s will become the prototype for future stores by incorporating more energy-saving ‘green’ features, a greater pedestrian and ‘village square-style’ orientation and unique architectural elements;

• Rockwell Collins, a $4.5 billion firm with 20,000 employees worldwide that designs and manufactures communication and aviation electronics, is consolidating US “heads-up” display operations by transferring approximately 150 primarily high-paid engineering positions to Wilsonville from San Jose, California. This move will bring Rockwell’s total local workforce to as high as 400 to 450 people. The chamber has responded to a request by Rockwell Collins for 100 ‘relocation packets’ for prospective employees who may transfer to our area.

• Movie Gallery, which acquired Hollywood Video in 2005, decided in 2008 to retain the Wilsonville corporate office as the firm’s US headquarters, relocating from Alabama and resulting in about 200 positions being retained here. Movie Gallery, which rents and sells DVDs, movie videos, and video games, did however vacate in 2009 the 178,000 square foot distribution center used by Hollywood Video located in North Wilsonville.

• Coca-Cola Bottling Company is constructing a $35 million, 150,000-plus square-foot expansion of the existing Coca-Cola plant, resulting in a 311,500 square-foot facility. The city worked with the Oregon Economic Development Department to obtain a $500,000 immediate opportunity grant to help with additional roadway transportation capacity for the expansion. Retaining Coca-Cola, which also considered relocating to a site in Washington state, kept over 100 existing jobs and resulted in an additional 17 jobs in Wilsonville and 45 jobs in the surrounding area.

• Coherent, Inc., which designs, manufactures and markets a variety of lasers and precision optics for measurement and diagnosis, told city officials that it was planning to relocate 20 to 40 positions to Wilsonville from Canada related to the October acquisition of StockerYale Inc.

• bioMérieux, a global firm headquartered in France that designs, develops, manufactures and distributes tools and instruments for medical in vitro infectious disease diagnostics and other products for the pharmaceutical industry, acquired in late 2008 Wilsonville-based PML Microbiologicals. This move retained over 200 jobs in Wilsonville and provided a global customer base and increased access to capital for the local facility.

• Medline Industries Inc., the nation’s largest privately-held medical-supply firm, leased 109,000 square feet of warehouse space in the former Nike Inc. Distribution Center on 95th Avenue. The Illinois-based firm is establishing its first Oregon outpost with about a dozen employees to better serve hospital and medical clinic clients from Portland to southern Oregon. Medline is the third medical-supply distributor to set up shop in Wilsonville, joining Richmond, Va.-based Owens & Minor Inc. and Dublin, Ohio-based Cardinal Health Inc.

• Other development proposals are in the works, including a new business park by Pacific NW Properties on the south side of Wilsonville Road just west of the railroad crossing; a new Wilsonville Audi automobile sales and service facility next to the Nissan dealership on 95th Avenue; and the 12,800 square-foot multi-tenant Morrissey Medical/Dental Building on SW Town Center Loop West.

While some of these firms are generally larger employers, they often purchase supplies and services locally and the expenditures by their employees benefit local, smaller businesses. We are not completely out of the recessionary woods and there will be challenges to rise above in the coming year. So let’s work together and support each other and our local businesses through these tough economic times. If we look out for our neighbors, pitch in where needed, shop locally and work as a team, we will all survive and become stronger in the long run.