Prineville Businesses Have Found Innovative Ways to Stay Afloat

(Downtown Prineville is home to many locally owned small businesses | Photo courtesy of EDCO)

The business sector in Prineville has mirrored that of other areas in Central Oregon and across the country over the past 16 months: There have been successes as well as struggles. “Certain industries have excelled despite the economic turmoil, but the service sector and traded-sector businesses related to hospitality and events have really struggled with all of the consistently changing guidelines,” says Kelsey Lucas, Prineville/Crook County director of Economic Development for Central Oregon (EDCO). “In many cases, manufacturing is doing better than ever, with more sales and new hires than years prior.”

Although there are many unfilled job openings, Lucas says that according to Oregon Employment Department data, non-farm employment in Crook County was up 13 percent in April 2021 versus April 2020, and up 3 percent compared to March of 2021. “The unemployment rate is down to 7.5 percent versus the 15.4 percent that we saw last April due to the initial impacts of the pandemic. Similar to the rest of the region and state, health care, construction, manufacturing and leisure/hospitality are finding it challenging to fill vacant positions.”

The biggest hurdles businesses in Prineville have faced are the same ones companies everywhere have faced: changing guidelines and having to adapt operations at the drop of a hat. “The past 16 months have been very hard on Prineville businesses as they have struggled to stay open,” says Jason Beebe, Prineville’s mayor. “It seems to be getting a little better now, but the business owners I have talked to are very nervous about the future. They have had to find innovative ways to keep businesses in operation.”

The Vintage Cottage, a refurbished furniture, home decor, women’s clothing and gift store located in downtown Prineville, is one such business that has struggled through the pandemic but is emerging strongly. “The past 16 months have been a bit of a roller coaster ride trying to keep up with the ever-changing requirements and mandates,” says owner Kimberly Dellinger. “We had constant fear of what arbitrary rules and/or mandates our government was going to require of our business, like shutting down again for a specified period of time.” Dellinger says that at the start of the pandemic, the limited contact she and her staff had with customers posed problems. “While many retail stores had an online presence with curbside delivery as an option for their customers, this store was not set up to support online shopping for a vast majority of our products.” She adds, “Typically, customers come in and browse in order to find what they want to purchase. They do not have a specific item in mind, but only a general idea of what they want. Without a major online presence and having the distribution infrastructure in place, sales were drastically negatively impacted.”

To address the problem, Dellinger says they were able to take advantage of the large social media following they have by posting items for sale and holding Facebook Live events. “Through this, we were able to provide exposure to products in the store. The first few months of the pandemic were extremely difficult financially and mentally. But once early summer started, customers came back in full force. Sales have steadily increased.” Dellinger has continued to maintain a social media presence by posting products and holding Facebook Live events a couple of times a month, and as a result has reached new customers coming to Central Oregon to shop from the west side of the state. “I knew that our store was in an incredible community, but what this last year has made me realize is just how supportive and amazing everyone is. I literally had customers coming in on a weekly basis, specifically to ensure that I was able to keep my doors open. I love this community and all of its people.”

Now that stores are open and sales are back up, the biggest challenge is reintegrating the labor pool, Lucas says. “Many businesses are looking to hire back employees and have been met with little to no interest due to unemployment compensation, cost of childcare and cost of commuting. Organizations are trying to adapt the job-fair environment to make it accessible to those who have continued to stay home or may be immune-compromised, but they continue to see a gap.”

To help keep businesses afloat during the pandemic, Lucas says Prineville quickly instituted COVID relief grants, including funding from Facebook’s data center, the chamber of commerce and the city, county and Downtown Association in the first round, and then CARES Act funding from the county in the four subsequent rounds of funding. These grants provided $1,216,854 in awards to more than 150 Crook County businesses, based upon a scoring matrix that factored in industry, state requirements related to closure, decrease in sales and registration with the State.

Prineville businesses have learned creative adaptability, she says, and received strong support and partnership from the community. “Businesses have pursued new business models and new markets, new safety measures, e-commerce and creative hiring solutions, an increase in remote working and virtual meetings, efforts geared toward pandemic relief and providing information and resources as they become available.” Tradeshows, trade missions and conferences have moved to the virtual realm, Lucas says, which means that although international companies looking to move into the area are restricted when it comes to site visits and community tours, they now have more accessibility and frequent interaction with the markets virtually. “EDCO has also moved to a hybrid event model, with in-person and virtual portions based on guidelines as they change, in order to make sure businesses and stakeholders are kept in the know and highlighted.”

Although the process has been challenging, Lucas says there have been many positives in the Prineville business sector since the pandemic began. “All of our local Central Oregon economies have stayed extremely busy during such a trying time globally, and Prineville is no exception. In 2020, we had six new company projects and two local companies expanding their operations for a total of eight projects this year, creating 38 new jobs locally and bringing in an estimated $437,952,640 in capital investment,” she says. “As far as business interest, companies looking at Crook County properties have ranged from small manufacturers looking for existing industrial space in the 2,500-5,000 square-foot range to larger advanced manufacturing and high-tech operations looking at parcels in the 25- to 75-acre range. The desire for existing turn-key building space seems to have increased versus build-to-suit projects, but land sales seem to be doing just as well, if not better, than they have in the past.”

Here are some of the recent business-related developments in Prineville, as reported by Lucas:

Baker Technical Institute — A new truck-driving trade school with a presence in Prineville, where students can obtain their CDL license in four to five weeks and have a job offer at the end of the program. BTI will also be launching an equipment-operating program in Prineville with the potential for additional skilled trades courses to come. (bakerti.org)
New spec industrial space, 40,000 square feet, all via one developer in Baldwin Industrial Park — An owner-occupied expansion added 15,600 square feet of new space, but this excludes the massive data center campus construction happening at both Facebook and Apple. An additional 200,000+ square feet of an improved former wood products mill also came on for multi-tenant occupancy, but since it existed previously, was not included as “new.” Prineville’s newest industrial park, Tom McCall, near the Prineville Airport, has 22,000 square feet of new construction in the works, with additional spec industrial space to come. Lucas says this will set Prineville up to continue to grow manufacturing and other traded-sector operations in the coming years, along with an inventory of industrial lands greater than 100 acres, making it one of the few cities in the state able to create these opportunities.
Increasing interest in property and hangar space at the Prineville airport — The interest is due to the upgrades happening, including a new fueling station, a new forest service rappel base and extended utilities related to this project, which opens up buildable acreage both airside and landside for general aviation operations or manufacturing.
Invenergy has two new solar projects that have come online in Q4 2020 and Q1 2021 called Prineville and Millican Solar.
Krah USA started manufacturing its polyethylene pipe at the Prineville Railway Freight Depot in December of 2020, with plans to reach 20 employees next year and 30 the following as production is ramped up. Planned investment is $15m at this time. Midge Graybeal, CEO of Krah, says that in addition to being a locally owned company, they are now a member of the “Krah Family of Companies” across the globe, which spotlights Prineville in other countries such as Germany, Argentina, Estonia, Japan, Chile, Manila and many others. Krah USA visitors have come to Prineville from Germany, Italy, Israel, Australia and Argentina.
Endura Products — The business is under new management, has new equipment investments and is currently looking to hire dozens of employees.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle manufacturer and integrator Volansi has expanded to Bend and Prineville and made national news, particularly within the industry. EDCO worked on the project over an 18-month period, hosting several site visits and providing research for the company to make an educated location decision. Fresh off a $50 million B-round capital raise, the firm expects to build up to 50 local employees over the next year and grow to as many as 150.
Facebook — Its newest West Coast operations expansion announcement will bring the Prineville campus to 4.6m square feet. William Marks, Facebook’s Community Relations Manager, reports that Facebook committed to building 100 megawatts of solar energy in Crook County, and the data center will be supported by 100 percent solar energy from these projects. Facebook also just released a study highlighting the positive economic impacts resulting from its commitment to renewable energy, including the solar projects in Crook County, which supported 200 jobs during construction.