91视频

Business is going gangbusters for Eugene-based

In the past five years, its payroll has grown by about 60 people to 74 and its revenue has grown by 1,000 percent, CEO Tony Bloom said. Last month, the company expanded into the Portland-metro area by taking over a 20,000-square-foot warehouse in Vancouver, Wash.

Mohawk Metal’s story is becoming a familiar one for Portland-area brokers, who say growth in the manufacturing industry is beginning to translate into real estate activity. But observers question whether that activity will continue as Europe continues to suffer economically.

Mohawk Metal provides metal fabrication services for multiple industries, including construction, energy, manufacturing, recycling and shipping. About a year ago, the company put a couple of salespeople in the Portland-Vancouver market and its backlog in the area went from 10 percent to 35 percent. The company began sending four to five truckloads of product to Portland each week.

鈥淲e’ve created a very dynamic manufacturing process that allows us to react to needs that a lot of the competitors have not been able to react to,鈥� Bloom said. 鈥淲e have some larger customers say, 鈥榃e need 7,000 parts and we need to have them in the next 48 hours,’ and I’ve personally put them in a truck and delivered them.鈥�

Mohawk Metal found a Vancouver warehouse, at 3825 N.E. 68th St., that was already set up as a fabrication shop. It began moving in and announced its plans to hire 20 people before the end of the year. Bloom expects to lease another 40,000 square feet within the next 24 months.

John Ruby, an industrial broker at , said that approximately 70 percent of the transactions he has facilitated this year have been for businesses with some sort of manufacturing aspect. He thinks that trend is indicative of situations where lean practices have simply run out of room.

鈥淲e’re kind of at a point now where people are just experiencing growth and they need to finally take action,鈥� Ruby said. 鈥淓veryone has been being smart and doing the lean manufacturing and lean distribution, and there’s a point where you can only do that for so long and you have to think about expanding and creating some operational efficiency.鈥�

Employment in the manufacturing sector has been slow and steady. State economist Mark McMullen said that since hitting a low in November 2009, manufacturing employment has increased by 10,000 jobs statewide to 172,000 today.

He added that any growth in manufacturing is something to crow about. That’s because manufacturing jobs typically provide family-wage salaries, don’t require college degrees and tend to increase opportunities for ancillary manufacturers, transporters and warehousers.

That theory appears to be holding water. According to Colliers’ third-quarter industrial report, the Portland market recorded its ninth consecutive quarter of positive absorption 鈥� with businesses taking up 140,339 additional square feet.

The delivery of 381,975 square feet of new industrial product, however, outpaced absorption; the industrial vacancy rate rose 13 basis points to 6.9 percent. In Clark County, vacancy actually fell 72 basis points to 3.9 percent, but Brad Bibble, a research analyst at Colliers, said much of that was because of Farwest Steel opening its $40 million, 336,452-square-foot manufacturing facility at the Port of Vancouver.

But Portland’s third quarter absorption equaled only 17 percent of the 820,056 square feet absorbed during the second quarter, and McMullen warned that new orders and planned shipments have slowed recently because of Europe’s economic troubles. Though most of Oregon’s exports go to China, McMullen said that China in turn sends what it buys to Europe.

鈥淚t’s never a good time to be a manufacturer in a global recession,鈥� McMullen said. 鈥淚t’s very scary right now, but in terms of the pricing environment, they’re in pretty good shape as long as demand stays up.鈥�

Meanwhile, Bloom is marching ahead with an aggressive growth plan that Mohawk Metal launched five years ago. He said the company has diversified its services to better respond to changing demands. Five years ago, Mohawk Metal had just 15 customers; today, it has 250.

The company recently invested $1 million in a laser cutter, which will help streamline production. It’s also stepping up production of prefabricated steel bridges for construction projects.

Bloom thinks Mohawk Metal’s culture will ultimately help it ride the changing tide.

鈥淓verybody is hungry and aggressive and willing to do whatever is needed,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t’s really the culture of the business and the culture of the people that really have been the key to success.鈥�