MPC Corp. closure hits industrial buildings market

MPC Corp.’s closure leaves a substantial amount of manufacturing and warehouse space vacant in north Nampa. The personal computer manufacturer, which once employed more than 1,000 people, recently announced that it is closing.

Canyon County tax records show that the MPC complex consists of four parcels that Micron Technology Inc. owns on East Karcher and Madison roads. They include:

• 15.03 acres on East Karcher (no improvement value), $1,309,400;

• 25.27 acres at 16162 Madison, $26,154,200;

• 13.64 acres also listed at 16162 Madison, $19,875,900; and

• 11.6 acres at 900 E. Karcher (no improvement value), $1,010,600.

“There could be some additional fallout from suppliers and vendors,” said Chris Pearson, industrial property broker with Boise-based Thornton Oliver Keller Commercial Real Estate.

MPC’s closure illustrates the national economic downturn’s impact on Idaho, Meridian-based industrial developer Ron Van Auker said.

“It obviously affects a couple of our tenants, will affect suppliers here in the (Treasure) Valley, and puts space on the market that leads to the reality of a major downturn,” he said.

Van Auker said he continues to find tenants to “back-fill” spaces in his industrial buildings that other businesses vacated.

Pearson said most industrial and warehouse businesses in the Treasure Valley occupy small and midsized spaces. This means the Canyon County industrial market “has held up reasonably well, all things considered.”

Nampa-based Coldwell Banker Commercial Gunstream & Associates, in a 2008-2009 market report, said the industrial market remained “relatively strong” in 2008, though rents dropped throughout the year. The firm said in the report that it expects the industrial market to remain good throughout the year, though large-company bankruptcies cause uncertainty. Economic development efforts, and increasing costs of doing business in many U.S. locations, bode well for the Boise-Nampa metro area’s industrial market long-term, the report said.

Pearson of Thornton Oliver Keller said that although MPC’s pullout increases vacancy rates, “there is now a large building available, which may attract an out-of-area user.”

Van Auker agreed.

“This frees up excellent manufacturing space and excellent warehousing space in an area geographically that has some of the finest labor – unemployed now – to be put back to work in a plant relocation out of states that are unfriendly to business, i.e. California,” he said.

Recent downsizing moves and closures by a number of sizable companies add to the pool of skilled employees who are available for businesses looking to move to, or expand in, Idaho, Van Auker said.

Micron Technology spokesman Dan Francisco said in an e-mail that the company is pursuing several options for the former MPC buildings. The options include selling or leasing the buildings, or bringing in another outside manufacturing business, he said.

Mike Reynoldson, Idaho government affairs manager for Micron, told the Idaho Legislature’s Joint Economic Outlook and Economic Assessment Committee Jan. 8 that the company’s job creation could benefit from state financial incentives to re-use vacant buildings. The company has considered manufacturing renewable-energy products –which could benefit from incentives – in its vacant building space in Nampa and Boise, he said.