MOSES LAKE - 2010 has ended and 2011 is dawning before us. Despite being in the midst of a global economic downturn, Grant County saw considerable economic activity including the start of construction on two new data centers in Quincy and a new carbon fiber manufacturing facility in Moses Lake.

These new projects, coupled with the county's strong agriculture base and diversified manufacturing sector, make it obvious how Grant County has been able to weather the economic storm better than most areas.

New Projects in 2010

SGL Automotive Carbon Fibers, a joint venture between SGL and BMW Auto Group, started construction in July on a carbon fiber manufacturing facility just east of the Grant County International Airport in Moses Lake. The Grant County EDC began working on this project in June of 2009 when it was known only as Project Chinook. A handful of management employees have already been hired. The facility is scheduled to be operational by June of 2011 with a total of 80 employees. Production and operation employees were asked to complete Big Bend Community College's Pre-Employment Training Program. This class is offered throughout the year by Big Bend and local manufacturing companies.

Microsoft and Yahoo! both began work on new data center facilities in Quincy this past year. Once Microsoft's new facility is completed, its campus in Quincy will be one of the 10 largest data center facilities in the world. The Grant County EDC worked extensively with both Microsoft and Yahoo! during 2005 and 2006 when they sited their first data centers in Quincy.

The Grant County EDC began working in February with another data center client known as Project Roosevelt. Meetings and site visits with the company went well and led to the company purchasing over 80 acres of land in Quincy in November. The increase in data center activity in Quincy is largely related to the passage of a state sales tax exemption on servers and electrical equipment for large data centers. This exemption is good through 2018 for data centers that have building permits in hand prior to June 30, 2011.

It is important to note that the loss of sales tax on servers and electrical equipment is more than made up for by the increased property tax revenues that will be collected as the new facilities are completed. Since the data center activity began in 2006, the locally assessed value in Quincy has increased almost fourfold from $273 million to more than $1 billion. This has lowered levy rates in Quincy for the individual taxpayer while simultaneously increasing the total dollar amount of taxes collected.  This means local residents saw their tax rates fall while the city received more money to provide vital community services.

Projects Completed in 2010

REC Silicon held a ribbon cutting ceremony in October to celebrate the completion of the expansions at its facilities in the Wheeler Corridor in Moses Lake. The Grant County EDC began working with REC Silicon on this project in 2005 and assisted at every step of the development process. Now that the project is complete, REC Silicon's production in Moses Lake has doubled making it one of the largest manufacturers of silane gas and polysilicon in the world. The total investment in the expanded facilities was approximately $1.7 billion.

To put the $1.7 billion investment in perspective, the only city in the state of Washington that had a higher dollar amount of new construction was Seattle, making Moses Lake number two on the list of Washington cities with the most new construction. Per capita, it is easily the largest construction project in the state with more than $87,350 dollars per person in Moses Lake. REC Silicon currently employs around 520 people and is continuing to hire.

Ongoing Projects

Guardian Industries resumed construction on its 500,000+ square-foot fiberglass insulation manufacturing facility located in the Wheeler Industrial Corridor of Moses Lake. Construction had been halted previously due to the sharp decline in demand for fiberglass insulation. The purpose of the construction during 2010 was to bring the facility within six months of being production ready. The Grant County EDC has worked with Guardian Industries since 2003 and has been informed that when the homebuilding market in the Northwest has returned to levels where demand for fiberglass insulation is adequate and the facility will begin hiring and become operational. It is anticipated that the facility will employ between 128 people when operating at full capacity.

Specialty Chemicals halted construction on its facility in 2009 due to the economic downturn and this continued into 2010. In 2007 the Grant County EDC helped Specialty Chemicals select four buildings that used to be a sugar beet processing plant in the Wheeler Industrial Corridor in Moses Lake as the site for its new manufacturing facility. The EDC continues to work closely with Specialty Chemicals and it is expected that as the economy recovers construction on the facility will resume. When the facility is fully operational it will employ approximately 50 people.

Pacific Coast Canola, previously Home Grown Oil, continued working throughout 2010 and hopes to start construction of its oil seed crushing facility in Warden in early 2011. The Grant County EDC has worked with the company since 2005 and has been told by the project team that the facility will employ 35-50 people upon completion.

Population Growth

According to the Washington State Office of Financial Management, Grant County ranked fifth in the state in terms of population growth between 2009 and 2010. The population increased by 1,600 residents or 1.82 percent from 86,100 to 87,700. Over the last decade, from 2000 to 2010, Grant County ranked seventh in the state with a growth of 13,002 residents or 14.83% from 74,698 to 87,700.

New Housing Construction

Although the county's population has continued to grow, new housing construction declined. There were just over 200 new residential permits issued in Grant County in 2010 as opposed to 228 permits in 2009 and 662 permits in 2008.

Eighty-four of the new permits in 2010 were for homes being built outside of city limits in the unincorporated county, 80 were for new home construction in Moses Lake and 20 were for new homes in Quincy, with the remainder of the permits being issued for new home construction in the other towns and cities in Grant County.

Several major homebuilders are continuing developing new communities in Moses Lake, Quincy, and Ephrata. Hayden Homes constructed approximately 33 homes in Moses Lake during 2010 and prepared additional lots for further development in 2011. Hayden Homes is also continuing development on a 60 lot community in Quincy that was started in earlier years.

Aho Homes has been continuing development of more than 108 lots in two communities in Moses Lake, and 90 lots in Quincy.

Also in Moses Lake, Schneider Homes is continuing development of a 51 lot community, and Monogram, of Pasco, is developing 18 lots.

In Ephrata, Olsen Homes constructed 5 homes in 2010 in an ongoing development.

In addition to the single residence construction, a 51 unit apartment complex was completed in George, and the Vintage apartment complex in Moses Lake began construction on its next phase.

Grant County Employment

Although the final numbers have not been calculated, the employment statistics that are available for 2010 show that employment is at an all-time high. However, this does not tell the whole story. While the number of people employed is at an all-time high, so is the number of people unemployed.

How can the number of people with jobs be higher if there are also more people without jobs? The answer is that the total number of people in the Grant County labor force has grown significantly.

In 2006, the number of people in the labor force was 38,670 as compared to 43,070 people in 2010. The addition of 4,400 more people in the labor force explains how there was both more people employed and unemployed at the same time in 2010.

On one hand it is great news that Grant County is growing and employment is up to an all time high of 38,870, on the other hand there is still a lot of work to be done to create jobs for the 4,200 individuals who are unemployed.

Agriculture

The backbone of the Grant County economy is agriculture, with approximately 26 percent of all people employed in the county working in agricultural jobs. Add to this the people who are employed by local food processors and agriculture support business and the impact of agriculture rises to over one third of all the jobs in Grant County being directly tied to agriculture.

According to the 2007 Census of Agriculture, there were 1,858 farms in Grant County on 1.08 million acres of land. 71 percent of the farmland was for crops, 22 percent was for pasture, and the remaining 7 percent was for other uses. The market value from crop sales was $846.9 million and $343.2 million from livestock sales for a total of $1.19 billion in Grant County agriculture sales.

The leading commodity groups in value of sales were 'Fruits, tree nuts, and berries' at $358 million, 'Cattle and Calves' at $251 million, and 'Vegetables, melons, potatoes, and sweet potatoes' at $205 million.

The leading crops by acre were 'Forage - land used for all hay and haylage, grass silage, and greenchop' with 147,793 acres, 'Wheat for grain' with 145,979 acres, and 'Vegetables harvested for sale' with 101,663 acres.

Transportation and Infrastructure

In June, United Express/SkyWest terminated the two daily round-trip flights between Seattle and Moses Lake that had started only a year previously. SkyWest cited low passenger numbers as the reason for ending the air service.

Work continued on the Quincy Reclaimed Wastewater project and it is expected that data center companies and other industrial companies in Quincy will begin using the system in 2011. The project recycles discharged water so that it can be used again at data centers and other industrial companies that need it. Additional funding is being sought to extend the reclaimed water to reach more of the industrial companies in Quincy.

The Columbia Basin Herald thanks Jon Smith and Amanda Pruneda of the Grant County Economic Development Council for their hard work to help with this report. Sources for statistics: Economic Modeling Specialists, Inc., Washington Center for Real Estate Research, Washington State Department of Revenue,  Washington State Employment Security Department, Washington State Labor Market and Economic Analysis, Washington State Office of Financial Management, USDA 2007 Census of Agriculture