company with an 85-year history of doing business in Oregon cast a vote of confidence in its home state recently by announcing the construction of a new cold-storage warehouse in Gresham, a suburb of Portland.
      For Tony Lucarelli, executive vice president of Hillsboro-based Henningsen Cold Storage Co., the decision to expand locally was easy.
      "We wanted proximity to our existing operation so that we could operate a satellite facility with the same management overhead," Lucarelli tells Site Selection. "This location in Gresham was as close as we could find."
      While other locations in the Pacific Northwest may have been cheaper, two factors made Oregon stand out, noted Lucarelli – the local work force and the state's unique quality of life.
      "Oregon is a great and livable area, especially from an employee standpoint," says Lucarelli. "You can't ask for a better place in which to live. Livability is a key point and is a main reason why people choose to live here."
      He adds that the "quality of the worker here is pretty decent. We need to hire forklift operators, clerical and trative staff, and other employees, administrative staff, and other employees, and there is a pretty good work ethic."
      The $20-million plant will cover 140,000 sq. ft. (13,006 sq. m.) and result in 15 new jobs, notes Lucarelli. Henningsen employs 60 people statewide and about 250 company-wide.
      Henningsen specializes in operating cold-storage distribution centers, or what Lucarelli calls "public refrigerated warehouses for frozen and refrigerated products."
      The new facility in Gresham, less than a mile from Henningsen's existing Portland operation at Exit 13 off Interstate 84, will have 16,000 pallet positions and 5.3 million cubic feet of temperature-controlled space.
      "This is the first new logistics center Henningsen has opened since 1999. It will be a new-generation facility with maximum flexibility and utilization to meet our ever-growing and diversifying customer base," Lucarelli says.
      Henningsen also operates cold-storage facilities in Washington, Idaho, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.       A new report on Oregon's economy showed strong growth in the state's exports business, fueled by a resurgence in demand for food commodities and good old-fashioned, home-grown timber.
      Nationally, the agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting industry grew by 27 percent in real GDP in 2007 – a sharp turnaround from its 3.5 percent decline in 2006. No state benefited more from this about-face than Oregon, which saw its exports increase by 8 percent last year to a record $16.5 billion.
      After languishing for several years in the bottom 10 states of corporate facility expansions, Oregon shot up to 28th place in 2007 with 51 projects, according to the Conway New Plant Database.
      Investments in wood products facilities are contributing to this resurgence, including Collins Companies' $35-million lumber plant in Boardman. Murphy Engineered Wood Products opened its $61-million new plant in Sutherlin in Southern Oregon last fall, creating 80 new jobs at the 215,000-sq.-ft. (19,974-sq.-m.) facility. The opening came two years after a fire destroyed the company's plywood mill.
      "It's been a long time since a new wood-products plant has been built anywhere in the Northwest," said company president John Murphy. "It was a big decision. I couldn't have even considered rebuilding without the support and encouragement of local and state economic development officials. There were simply no hurdles that these folks would not help us tackle."
      "We have the second lowest corporate income tax rate in the U.S., and we have a very aggressive tax credit program for companies that manufacture alternative energy products or convert to energy conservation programs – the credits go up to $20 million," says Bob Repine, director of the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department. "But we are not standing pat. Some $200 million in non-road transportation improvements were approved by the legislature to improve our ports, railways and airports. We have 24 ports in Oregon, and we are upgrading them."
      Lucarelli adds that the timing is right to pursue expansions in the Northwest. "The population is growing in the Northwest, so we are seeing it become more of a distribution market," he says. "This is still a pretty remote region when it comes to population, but it is growing. We attract people for livability reasons, and land is still available."       Lucarelli also likes the relative predictability of energy costs in the region. "Power costs in the Pacific Northwest have been relatively lower compared to other parts of the country," he notes. "That is creeping up because of increased demand and mandates for renewable sources, but Oregon is still competitive from a power standpoint. We build facilities with maximum efficiency in mind. We look at how heavy our insulation is on the walls and ceiling. All of the equipment in our building needs to be very energy efficient. Energy costs are the second largest expense item for cold-storage operators. No. 1 is labor."
      Henningsen is served by Portland General Electric, which has won the EPA Green Power Provider of the Year Award three years in a row. About 10 percent of PGE's customers buy alternative energy, representing 65,000 power consumers. And they want even more alternatives. The utility just made a $1.1-billion commitment at Biglow Canyon in a wind farm in North Central Oregon for 300 more megawatts of wind power.
      "Wind and most other renewable energy options available today are variable resources that have great potential but need to be backed up with conventional capacity," said Jim Lobdell, vice president for power operations and resource strategy at PGE. "PGE is working to combine these resources to reduce its environmental footprint while providing customers with reliable, reasonably priced electricity."