A small, family-owned Portland meat processing company is trying to do what two high-tech companies could not: make a 90,000-square-foot building work.
The company's new building is tucked below a business complex between Northeast Halsey Street and Interstate 84 in Wood Village with offices, manufacturing space and loading bays. It's also wired and plumbed to make circuit boards or thin-film solar panels.
Merix constructed the building in 2004 and put 180 people to work making circuit boards. But as hard times hit, the Forest Grove-based company closed the plant in 2008 and let everyone go. XsunX, a California startup solar manufacturer, leased the building for a year, spent $2 million in upgrades before walking away in 2009 after failing to land Oregon business energy tax credits.
Now the three owners of Morasch Meats Inc. are spending $7.5 million to turn part of the building into an ultramodern food-processing plant.
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