The nonprofit working to bring a retired naval ship to Fairview to serve as a museum plans to open a new office space and shop near the ship’s future mooring spot.

The has been building a team of volunteers in the Gresham area who want to turn the famous supercarrier the USS Ranger, now docked in Bremerton, Wash., into a museum called the Community Heritage Center.

The Ranger was featured in the movie “Top Gun,” and the Foundation will sell mugs, hats and clothes emblazoned with the slogans: “Ranger: Top Gun of the Pacific” and “Future Home Port: Fairview, Oregon” from its new space at 21935 N.E. Halsey St.

“We wanted a more visible space with a bit more room,” said Lonnie Dicus, senior adviser for the foundation.

Generating cash is crucial – if the funds to move the decommissioned ship aren’t raised by 2015, the U.S. Navy has decided to tear it apart and sell the metal for salvage.

If the USS Ranger Foundation can raise enough money to bring the ship to Fairview, however, the foundation’s plan is to convert it into the world’s largest floating museum, a community space, educational space and even an emergency preparedness center.

That plan could cost up to $25 million according to Dicus, but he says the fundraising efforts are going well so far. Last year the foundation raised $600,000, and the Foundation’s staff has since grown dramatically; 130 volunteers will be working to raise $1.2 million by this time next year.

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USS Ranger CV-61

Length: 1,046 feet

Width: 130 feet across and 249.5 feet at extreme beam width

Average crew carried: 3,826

Cruising speed: 34 knots

History: The ship earned 13 battle stars for service in Vietnam; it also served during Operation Desert Storm. Movie credits include “Top Gun” and “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.”

Source: USS Ranger Foundation

Few people would debate the merits of repurposing outdated buildings in the Portland-metropolitan area.

But one nonprofit group wants to take a step further and repurpose an old aircraft carrier to serve the community.

The group is working to bring the USS Ranger – a former naval ship that, at 1,046 feet, is longer than three football fields – to a mooring spot in Fairview. The USS Ranger Foundation is seeking donation of the ship by the U.S. Navy to not only convert the Ranger into the world’s largest floating museum, but also into community space, educational space and even an emergency preparedness center.

Since it was commissioned in 1957, the USS Ranger CV-61 has served in a war and been featured in movies. But the U.S. Navy has decided that the ship must be moved from its current location in Bremerton, Wash. If a new home can’t be found for the Ranger by 2015, the ship will be torn apart and the metal will be sold for salvage.

That’s where the , a nonprofit group based out of Gresham, comes into the picture.

“The fact of the matter is that this is in our control and we have the exclusive rights to the ship,” said Lonnie Dicus, senior adviser for the foundation. “If it doesn’t go to us, it gets cut up.”

Other nonprofit organizations have completed similar projects around the country, though this would be the first one in the Pacific Northwest. The USS Midway in San Diego, which acts as a museum and memorial, attracts nearly a million visitors a year. The Intrepid, in New York City, has served as one of the city’s emergency response centers since the NYC Office of Emergency Management was displaced as a result of 9/11.

“Other projects on these ships tend to be museums and memorials,” Dicus said. “(The Ranger project) would be much more.”

The nonprofit is in the middle of the second step of a four-step process to acquire the ship. After narrowing down a location for the ship – the Chinook Landing Marine Park in Fairview – the group is now focused on raising money and securing the regulatory permits required for the project.

The group has cleared one hurdle already, by receiving confirmation from the Columbia River Pilots Association that it could safely move the ship up the Columbia River from the Pacific Ocean. Under ideal circumstances, the ship can make it up the river, the confirmation letter said, but the organization would need to work with Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad to coordinate passage through the railroad bridge. Dicus said those discussions are under way.

The other major issue is raising money to pay for relocation of the ship.

“The foundation’s goal is (to raise) $15 million by opening in 2015,” said Shannon Chisom, the USS Ranger Foundation’s development director who was brought on to lead the fundraising campaign.

Two years into its effort, the group has raised more than $600,000, according to Dicus. That amount is significantly greater than the $50,000 raised in the first year, he said.

“Next year is going to be real telling,” Dicus said. “If we’re going to be legit, we need to be over the $2 million or $3 million mark this time next year.”

The group has 130 people involved in the effort and a lot of support from key decision makers. Resolutions of support were passed by seven nearby cities, including Portland; two counties; the state Senate and Metro. Also, letters of support were written by seven members of Congress, Gov. John Kitzhaber, five local business organizations and several veterans’ associations.

“We’ve built a very solid, very deep political base,” he said. “It’s now about the regulatory and approval process.”

Consult Econ, a market research and project feasibility firm, has estimated that the project would create 536 jobs for the area and have an economic impact of $46.1 million annually. Read the .

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Disc golf is coming to the city of Fairview and Metro’s Blue Lake Regional Park.

The Metro Council, with support from the city of Fairview, has conditionally approved turning 70 unused acres of land at the eastern end of the park into a gold-level certified disc golf course. The gold-level designation, the highest ranking awarded to disc golf courses by the , would make the course available for local, national and international disc golf tournaments.

The 101-acre park, which is owned and operated by Metro, is located a few miles east of the Interstate 84 and 205 junction between Interstate 84 and the Columbia River. The park already has a 64-acre lake, sports fields, covered picnic areas and a 40-mile biking and walking trail.

The disc golf course, estimated to cost between $60,000 and $100,000, has been designed by David Felberg, one of the top disc golfers in the nation. Unlike many other disc golf courses, the land will be designated only for the use of disc golf and not other recreation activities.

Metro has agreed to pay for the majority of the course, and the investment will be recouped by a portion of the $5 parking fee Metro charges each visitor. The course will not cost anything to play.

Anyone wanting to offer input on the project is encouraged to weigh in at an open house on Wednesday Jan. 5 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Lake House within the park. The park is located at 21154 N.E. Blue Lake Rd., in Fairview.

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Solar component company Ferrotec needed 5 megawatts of power to support a 40,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in the Portland-metro area. But such an industrial space, apparently, is like a needle in a haystack.

“Ferrotec originally wanted to look at Hillsboro because other high-tech manufacturers were there,” said Mike Thomas, a senior vice president with Colliers International who represented Ferrotec. “But they needed a certain amount of power and building configuration, and the buildings we saw there didn’t have it.”

After a year of searching, brokers found Birtcher Center along Townsend Road in Fairview, where development company Birtcher Development & Investments of Lake Oswego laid additional electrical conduit before constructing the 167,000-square-foot industrial facility.

The combination of extra power capacity under the building, and additional conduit laid by Portland General Electric along recently constructed Townsend Road, gave the building a competitive advantage. Ferrotec has signed a 10-year lease for its manufacturing facility, which will produce quartz crucibles used to manufacture ingots used in the creation of solar panels.

“Ferrotec will be part of the supply chain for our local solar industry,” said Theresa Taafe, a project manager with PGE overseeing work to upgrade the building for use by Ferrotec. “They will manufacture products that SolarWorld and Sanyo use. Having a whole supply chain developed here makes it more attractive for other solar companies to locate here.”

Though many speculative buildings for warehousing and manufacturing have been developed in the Portland-metro area over the years, few are planned with extra conduit. That’s because installation of additional conduit represents a significant investment in a building that may not be filled by a tenant that needs extra power.

“If you’re building a speculative building, you usually can’t afford to put in that infrastructure and expect a return,” said Paul Breuer, a senior vice president with Colliers International who represented Birtcher in the transaction. “When rates for these properties are measured in half-pennies per square foot, spending an extra dollar to ready it for manufacturing makes no return.”

Nevertheless, solar, wind and battery manufacturers need facilities with large power capacities, Breuer said. And there are only certain pockets in the Portland-metro area with such capacities.

“It’s important when siting a facility like Ferrotec’s to network with people at PGE early on to find out which substations have the capacity to support a company’s power demands,” Thomas said. “That defines the area where you look for buildings. If you look at close-in Northwest Portland, there’s no new electrical infrastructure. Finding a space within Portland city limits with 5 megawatts of power is very unlikely.”

Taaffe says Ferrotec evaluated more than 20 sites between Salem and Vancouver, Wash., before settling in Fairview. A building’s power capacity depends on its age and its previous use. Oftentimes, PGE has to perform extensive upgrades to increase the power capacity of a building.

“The area where Ferrotec is located is a newer industrial area, which, thankfully, won’t require much of a service upgrade from us,” Taaffe said. “We build each of our systems to meet the needs of whoever is connecting to it. Ferrotec’s load is not as huge as, say, a Schnitzer Steel-type company, but it still took a long time for them to narrow down a building.”

Birtcher’s investment in additional conduit seems to have paid off. Two other companies are considering leases at Birtcher Center, though it is too early to say who they are, Breuer said.

“Every time a company like Ferrotec looks at Portland, they are looking for power above and beyond the normal warehousing standard,” Breuer said.

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A Northeast 223rd Avenue railroad underpass in Fairview has been in need of widening for years. Two cars could barely pass in opposite lanes, but a car and a truck could not, and there were no sidewalks or bike lanes. Multnomah County and general contractor Franklin Pacific Construction are in the middle of a project that replaces the Union Pacific railroad bridge with a much wider structure, demolishes the old bridge and widens Northeast 223rd Avenue between Northeast Sandy Boulevard and Bridge Street.

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