Boat builder expands to new Port of Clarkston location

Boat builder Renaissance Marine Group is planning an expansion at the Port of Clarkston.

The business aims to fill a 56,000-square-foot building at 908 Port Drive that has housed Grassland West for almost two decades. The details of that deal are being finalized this week.

Clarkston port commissioners Monday unanimously approved assigning a lease for the 4 acres of port ground where the building sits to an affiliate of Renaissance Marine Group. No one from the boat manufacturer or Styner Properties, the building owner, was

present.

The sale of the building is expected to close Friday, Port Manager Wanda Keefer said.

Renaissance Marine Group, which employs about 125 people in Clarkston, expects to provide more information about what it wants to do with the building in coming weeks, said owner Byron Bolton in Vernon, B.C., where the company has another manufacturing plant.

Bolton's Washington location is on 16th Street near Fleshman Way, at the edge of the Clarkston Heights, and is served by a septic system, not sewer. It's too soon to say if Renaissance Marine will continue to use that property, Bolton said.

He said Renaissance Marine Group is committed to the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley because its mild climate and proximity to rivers make it possible to test boats almost year-round.

"This is where our base of solid, long-term employees are who are absolutely critical to the future of the company," he said.

Port officials said the new tenant matches perfectly with the port's goal of promoting the manufacturing sector.

"We're expecting to see job growth as a result of this change," Keefer said. "These are good jobs. We know it's well above the average (pay)."

As Renaissance Marine prepares to occupy the Port Drive lot, Grassland West is moving. It has a lease with an option to buy the 13,500-square-foot former location of Honk's $1 store at 432 Thain Road in Lewiston, said Brad Styner, general manager of Grassland West.

The move corresponds with a change in the company's business model, Styner said.

Grassland West wholesales grass seed raised in the region. It will continue that endeavor and add a retail area that will sell grass seed, pet food, fertilizer and other lawn and garden products. Styner said the company began heading in that direction when Walmart located nearby in Clarkston and shoppers began stopping by and wanted to purchase seed.

The shuffling in owners of the Port Drive property is part of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding involving Styner Properties in the federal bankruptcy court of the Eastern District of Washington.

The sale will pay off every creditor Styner Properties has, said Michael Paukert, a Spokane attorney representing Styner Properties.

"I'm positive this is going to close without hiccups," he said.

The direction Styner Properties will take is still being decided, Styner said. Roger Styner, his father and an owner of the building, died about six months ago.

The building at 908 Port Drive typically had other tenants besides Grassland West. One of the largest and most recent was FedEx, which left when it moved to a new site at the Port of Lewiston.

---

Williams may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.