Christensen new plant on hold

Pascal · Feb 3, 2009

this link was posted on the Trawlers list this morning:

http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2009/01/26/daily67.html?surround=lfn

YachtForums · Feb 3, 2009

Posting the article because eventually the link will be discontinued...

Christensen Shipyards Ltd. officials once thought their business was immune to the weak economy. Turns out that’s not the case.

Work on the Vancouver-based luxury yacht manufacturer’s 500,000-square-foot Tennessee manufacturing plant has stopped, with the lead investor citing the market collapse as the reason, the Knoxville (Tenn.) News-Sentinel reported Friday.

Christensen officials in Vancouver could not be reached for comment late Friday.

The 25-year-old company has made close to 50 yachts for the super rich. The company last fall said its Vancouver shipyard was limited to building 165-foot ships at a time when demand was shifting towards yachts 200-feet-long.

The under-construction plant in Greenback, Tenn., about 30 miles south of Knoxville, was designed to produce yachts up to 230-feet long. Company President Joe Foggia told the Portland Business Journal in August that the first hulls were to be assembled in Tennessee starting this month and that Christensen, at the time, had orders for two 225-foot yachts from the same buyer.

Henry Luken, the project’s lead investor in the Christensen project, told the News-Sentinel that work stopped while they were deciding whether to expand the facility beyond its designed capacity. “We couldn’t put the doors on the building until we made the decision,” he told the paper.

He also said the market collapse has hurt the deep pockets of the yacht-buying public, noting that three customers “lost a half a billion in one week,” the paper reported.
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Christensen new plant on hold

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