June 28, 2002

Companies know importance of Longmont?s quality of life

LONGMONT — Something more than the spectacular Colorado scenery continues to attract businesses and families to Longmont.

The city’s population jumped to 76,098 in 2001, according to city planners’ estimates, an increase of about 5,000 from the 2000 census figures. From 1990 to 2001, the city has grown by about 24,500 people.

According to a collection of companies located in Longmont, a major reason for the influx is the way the city caters to businesses that, in turn, draw employees to the area. Affordable commercial and industrial space supports businesses, while the community spirit of the city supports their employees at work, at home and all places in between, some local businesspeople say.

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That community spirit is exemplified by a new city program that provides for the future by preserving local open space.

Nelson Diaz, president and chief executive officer of InPhase, a company that developed the first holographic storage product, moved to Longmont five years ago and took over InPhase in January 2001.

?Boulder County is the center for production and development of storage products, and Longmont is the epicenter,? Diaz said. ?From a strategic point of view, this is a good place to attract product developers.?

Originally a spin-off of Lucent-Bell Labs in New Jersey, InPhase employs more than 50 people in Longmont. ?We considered Silicon Valley, but Longmont had a building that was perfect for our needs. Because of the lower cost of living here, it was easier to relocate some of the employees to Longmont rather than to Silicon Valley,? Diaz said.

InPhase compared building costs in local cities and found that the same size facility in Longmont was 50 percent less than in Boulder. Diaz said what made the building even more ideal was that a company with the same needs as InPhase previously used it. The building already contained labs, clean rooms and office space that appealed to a storage development company. ?It was used by one of the companies we’re recruiting from now,? Diaz said.

Costs and quality of the facility may have attracted InPhase to Longmont, but the local school district was what lured Diaz personally.

?We came from Colorado Springs, and the schools here were the same size with similar types of programs,? he said.

Ray Falce, president and chief operating officer of LOTS Technology, said he told the company he’d take the job only if LOTS relocated to Longmont from California.

?All the tape people reside in this area ? Longmont, Broomfield and Louisville. I know all the players here,? he said. ?Longmont leans toward supporting storage companies, and it has a good draw.?

LOTS, which develops and manufactures optical tape drives used by government agencies and large businesses, has been in Longmont since October. The company employs 32, with more than half of its workers living in Longmont.

?The quality of life for raising kids here is great. People tend to stay here rather than leave,? Falce said.

?This is a great location,? he added. ?I’m on my way this afternoon to Denver for a Rockies game, and it will take me only about 35 minutes to get there. There are baseball, hockey and football teams nearby, and Longmont has a good symphony. It offers big-city ambiance without being a big city itself.?

Look Dynamics, a company that makes optical image engines for military and civilian markets, including large data centers, has been in Longmont for one and a half years.

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer David Bruce said, ?We could get more and better space for less money here. It’s a better deal for us to be in Longmont.?

Look Dynamics was located in Boulder prior to the move. ?Boulder County really isn’t that big. We didn’t lose any people by moving to Longmont,? Bruce said.

Look Dynamics is the second business that Bruce has run in Longmont. ?Cost for the space for that business was the same reason for being in Longmont, only more so,? he said. ?It was a manufacturing plant that needed a lot of space and a lot of electric power.?

Seagate Technology Inc., a computer hard drive manufacturer, started out as Codata Memory in 1985 in Longmont. Today, Seagate’s headquarters are in California, while the Longmont facility serves as the design center for personal storage hard drives.

Seventy percent of Seagate’s 1,010 employees live in Longmont, according to Seagate Corporate Communication Manager Cindy LaRocque.

In September 2000, Seagate moved into its 450,000-square-foot facility in Longmont. Prior to that, the company leased numerous office spaces throughout the city.

?We chose to stay in Longmont because of the number of employees who live here,? LaRocque said. ?We have a good working relationship with the city of Longmont and have established ties with this community.

?A lot of our employees volunteer in local schools and charitable organizations. It’s been important to them to stay in the community where they live.?

Seeing the population and development increase so rapidly, Longmont residents responded to their concern about the area’s wildlife habitat with a plan for preservation. The city passed an open space sales tax that will be in effect for the next 20 years.

Revenue from the two-tenths-of-a-percent tax is earmarked for wetland and agricultural land purchase, preservation of natural areas and development of district parks that allow for low-impact use and links to trails.

?We bonded our revenue based on the potential revenue over the next 20 years for a $22 million bond,? said Dan Wolford, the city’s first superintendent of open space and trails. ?We’ve looked at important properties to preserve to provide buffers between us and communities like Erie, Lafayette and Firestone ? to prevent all of us from becoming a huge metropolis.?

LONGMONT — Something more than the spectacular Colorado scenery continues to attract businesses and families to Longmont.

The city’s population jumped to 76,098 in 2001, according to city planners’ estimates, an increase of about 5,000 from the 2000 census figures. From 1990 to 2001, the city has grown by about 24,500 people.

According to a collection of companies located in Longmont, a major reason for the influx is the way the city caters to businesses that, in turn, draw employees to the area. Affordable commercial and industrial space supports businesses, while the community spirit of the city supports their employees at…

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