Wyoming Business: Cheyenne economy hums, but could it move too fast?

CHEYENNE — In six years of covering economic report panels for The Northern Colorado Business Report in Cheyenne, I have always encountered strong optimism that Cheyenne’s economy was moving forward, albeit at a much slower pace than many wanted.

This year the overwhelming optimism is supported by performance.

In fact, Cheyenne’s economy is now humming along at a pace fast enough to prompt one economic prognosticator, Dick O’Gara, to warn that the community should be prepared for an anti-growth reaction.

“We still have the anti-growth people in this community and statewide, and the argument you will begin hearing once word gets out how well we are doing is, ‘Are we now growing too fast that we cannot keep pace with it? Can we maintain infrastructure? Can we maintain services?'”

O’Gara, who heads the Center for Economic and Business Data at Laramie County Community College, adds: “Ten, 15 years ago, I think all of us said we’ll worry about that when we get there. Well, we may be there.”

Cheyenne’s hot economy is fueled by growing retail, service and manufacturing sectors. The city’s traditional government and military base is being bolstered by construction of a Lowe’s Cos. regional distribution center and growth in manufacturing jobs at such companies as Puma Steel, VAE Nortak and rapidly expanding newcomer Grobet File Co. USA, and service jobs in companies like Sierra Trading Post and Trilegient.

Granted, not every individual or business is sharing in Cheyenne’s economic upturn, but enough are that the optimism long felt by community business leaders is finally being supported by performance.

Sierra Trading Post grows

CHEYENNE — Sierra Trading Post, one of Cheyenne’s success stories, is growing again with construction of a new 284,000-square-foot fulfillment center that will more than double the firm’s existing building.

The new center, scheduled to open by the end of the year, is rising just east of Sierra Trading Post’s existing operation that has already undergone three major expansions since the company moved to Cheyenne from Nevada 10 years ago.

In fact, company founder and president Keith Richardson jokes that his business has been in a “continual state of expansion” since becoming the first tenant of the new Cheyenne Business Parkway in 1992.

The newest expansion will house the company’s primary business, providing name-brand closeout and overstock outdoor and recreational gear and clothing at a savings of 35 percent to 70 percent to mail-order, telephone and Internet customers. That will free up the existing building for expanded retail and office space.

Meanwhile, Sierra has expanded its product lines and now has six different catalogs, mailing more than 50 million a year from Cheyenne. According to Richardson, “we began seeing ourselves as an in-house outlet mall.”

Bucking adverse trends nationally in the mail-order industry, Sierra Trading Post is continuing to grow and Richardson says, “we’re expecting solid growth in the future.”

New community bank planned

CHEYENNE — One sign of faith in Cheyenne’s continuing downtown renaissance is the fact that a new bank is seeking a state charter — and wants to locate downtown.

If approved by the state Banking Commission, the community-owned Cheyenne State Bank will be the first new chartered bank in Cheyenne since 1977, according to Cheyenne attorney Ted Simola, who heads a group of investors seeking the charter.

The proposed new bank has 71 investors, mostly downtown business people who have raised $3.25 million in capital through a stock offering. None of the investors will own more than 10 percent of the stock, according to Simola, so the bank will have a very diversified ownership.

The bank’s other principals are Jim Rauzi, owner/operator of Poor Richard’s restaurant; Douglas Finch, owner of Commercial Flooring in Cheyenne and a former FDIC bank auditor; Bart Trautwein, owner of Surg-O-Flex of America in Cheyenne and a former banker; and Gary Wickam, former president of American National Bank in Cheyenne.

Branch banking and acquisitions has brought a number of new banks to Cheyenne in recent years, but Simola said the new Cheyenne State Bank hopes to find its niche as a locally owned community bank.

Ironically, Simola was involved in starting Equality State Bank, the last new bank chartered in Cheyenne. Equality State was acquired by First Interstate Bank last year.

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