B.C.-Based Navigata Lays out $1.8 million for Foray into Pacific Northwest. A strategic location and available talented labor pool were two of the key factors in persuading a Canada-based telecommunications company to spend $1.8 million in acquiring a Bend property for a major data center hub which will act as a gateway to further expansion in the Pacific Northwest.
British Columbia-based Navigata Communications recently purchased a 28,000 square foot industrial building at 213 SW Columbia Street which formerly housed biorational pest control company Suterra – prior to that company’s expansion and relocation to Juniper Ridge business park – and plans a substantial retrofit to accommodate substantial server and client back-up data storage needs.
Navigata USA President Jeffrey Mayhook said: “Bend is a fantastic community and its strategic location makes it highly suitable for operations like a data center, and as a natural extension of our existing operations in Canada into the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
“The area also has diverse energy resources and top notch people with a talented pool to draw on, so this is an all-round great fit for us.”
Mayhook said plans for the Bend base included creating an environment to maintain information technology infrastructure, as a co-location for servers and back-up data storage including critical IT functions and disaster recovery services.
In Canada, Navigata is well known as a communications service provider with a 55-year history delivering customized voice, data and Internet solutions to businesses across the country, and to carriers around the world – supported by an extensive network, a national backbone, and top technical team.
While the Bend data centre will initially provide a secure, controlled environment with access to high bandwidth Internet for hosting the mission-critical network equipment and web servers to keep business equipment up and running 24/7, Mayhook said strategic plans were likely to “evolve” further into the future.
Last year, Oregon’s Public Utility Commission granted Navigata what is known as “competitive local exchange carrier” status in the state, offering the potential of opening up phone and Internet service options.
Mayhook said that his company became aware of the Bend property opportunity around a year ago, and that plans coalesced around the location being a natural fit and central location relative to other markets, both in the Pacific Northwest and further along the West Coast.
He added: “It is important to ensure there is adequate network support and power capacity, while Bend’s well-known lifestyle attributes also offers a better proposition to attract employees who would like to work and live in the area.
“There are other incentives for us, including potential Enterprise Zone benefits, and I have to say that the Economic Development for Central Oregon (EDCO) organization and the City of Bend have been extremely helpful and supportive in our efforts.
“People like Nate LiaBraaten at EDCO and Jon Skidmore, who was the Bend business advocate for the City, are intuitive and intelligent, and know the key points that fold into the bigger picture.
“Bend is a great and livable place, and I think, for example, when some of our larger customers’ IT specialists visit for regular data recovery drills, they will enjoy the additional amenities of the area and maybe bring their families along also to mix some recreation with work as just one further additional benefit.
“We are excited to be here, and look forward to growing at a reasonable and scaleable pace.”
LiaBraaten, who is a business development manager with EDCO, added: “We are excited to see another high-caliber company such as this come to Bend. The area really has become known as a good match for data center location – including having plentiful and competitively priced energy, a conducive climate and low level of natural disasters, with Bend Broadband having been something of a leader in this direction.
“Many times we will work with companies for some time before they make site selection decisions, and can assist with research regarding suitability for anticipated needs and availability of incentive programs, including Enterprize Zones benefits like property tax abatements and so on.
“Actually, Navigata would have not been eligible for these incentives three months ago, but we and other local organizations successfully lobbied for an expansion of the Enterprise Zone coverage area, which has been tripled and now covers some 90 per cent of the commercial, industrial and mixed-use areas in Bend.
“This company also did a lot of independent research and is interested in how to integrate in the community and be a good partner. There were a variety of factors that met their criteria, including the lifestyle offered by Bend and where we land regarding cost of living versus wage levels.
“I think we will also see more ancillary businesses sprouting up connected with the flourishing data center hi-tech cluster in the area.”
LiaBraaten said it was important for companies looking to explore incentive options to talk to EDCO about compliance requirements prior to carrying out any construction or purchasing property.
He added that EDCO was currently working with more than 50 companies regarding both recruitment and expansion, saying: “There is a lot in the mix, and we are in one of the busiest times of growth in employment and infrastructure.
“The pipeline and activity level means we are expecting one of the best cycles of growth for the remainder of this year going into 2013 that EDCO has ever seen, partly due to having an effective and well-designed tool kit of incentives for company recruitment and expansion.”
