Move to high ground helps Tillamook rental business

Published 4:00 pm Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Now that they’re high and dry, staff at Tillamook Rental Center are seeing more business than ever.

“We’re getting lots of new walk-ins who had never noticed us before,” said Shawn Malmquist, office manager.

In early February, the rental center moved from US Highway 101 North, in Tillamook, to 502 Main St., in downtown Tillamook. The new location is the former Bob Wirth Motors building.

While the rental center operated at its previous site for more than 30 years, it took a hard hit during November flooding.

“We had four feet of water in one building and five feet of water in another,” said Malmquist. Damage, he said, “was in the tens of thousands of dollars.”

Owned by Don Coleman, of Tillamook, the rental center rents a wide variety of equipment, including light excavation equipment, small concrete mixers, jackhammers, airless paint sprayers, and lawn and garden implements.

The Tillamook County Chamber of Commerce will host a “grand reopening,” with cake, coffee and a ribbon cutting, at the rental center at 10 a.m., March 27.

For more information, call Tillamook Rental Center at (503) 842-5596.