Moses Lake on Census Top 10 Growth List

Ryan Lancaster/Columbia Basin Herald

Wednesday, April 18, 2012 9:05 am

MOSES LAKE - The U.S. Census Bureau recently rated Moses Lake as one of the top growing micro areas in the U.S.

The city added 2,145 residents between April 1, 2010, and July 1, 2011, placing it 10th among micro areas with the largest numeric increase, according to the Census Bureau.

The bureau defines a micro area as having between 10,000 to 50,000 residents. Moses Lake's current population is 20,366.

"The industrialization and the creation of a lot of new family-wage jobs here probably has a lot to do with that," said Moses Lake City Manager Joe Gavinski. He cited the area's relatively inexpensive hydropower and available land. "We've been really aggressive in our industrial growth."

In order to attract even more of that growth, Gavinski said the city has focused on making sure it's infrastructure and public services are the best they can be.

"We've made sure our water and sewer systems are in good shape and capable of handling industry as best we can, and are also doing what we can in order to create a desirable way of life here in terms of quality of life - meaning parks, good streets, fire and police protection, that sort of thing," he said.

But the region's recent growth isn't confined to Moses Lake proper, according to Jonathan Smith, executive director of the Grant County Economic Development Council.

Smith said Moses Lake's "micropolitan" area, which includes the whole of Grant County, has seen a big growth spurt since 2007, when data centers came in to Quincy and companies like REC Silicon and SGL/BMW Automotive Carbon Fibers expanded and built new facilities near Moses Lake.

New industries have brought new jobs and a resultant population increase, but Smith said they're also bringing more and more interest from other companies interested in expansion.

"When a company like Microsoft or Yahoo! does something it gets known not just throughout the region, but throughout the country and the world," he said. "That sort of puts us on the map as a focus for attention from a lot of industries looking at projects, looking at new places to grow. We're on their radar because they know where some of these significant business names have gone and so they're interested in investigating why."

That "why," as Gavinski noted, is tied to the region's reliable hydropower and attainable land, both of which are offered at prices Smith said are competitive not just in the U.S., but in the world market.

"The SGL/BMW carbon fiber facility is on 60 acres of land," he said. "If you can find a piece of land that size in another area, combined with the lower cost of electricity, the playing field of places that are available for that gets narrow really fast. That's kind of been our competitive advantage."

The SGL/BMW plant, which was completed last April near the Port of Moses Lake, is the joint venture of SGL Automotive Group and BMW, and produces a carbon fiber-reinforced plastic used in BMW's new line of lighter, more energy efficient electric cars, called the BMWi.

Company representatives were unavailable for comment Monday.

But at a September grand opening event, BMW's CEO Norbert Reithofer confirmed the decision to build the plant here was based primarily on the availability of clean, renewable hydropower and competitive energy costs.

"Making sure the new BMWi is produced using renewable energy throughout the manufacturing process is very important to the company," Reithofer said at the time. "We are thinking about sustainability not just tomorrow, but the day after."

Alongside clean, cheap energy, SGL officials credited the Moses Lake area for having favorable infrastructure conditions, speedy permitting processes and an ever-growing skilled labor force.

Smith said this last point is one the Moses Lake community still needs to work on if it's going to continue attracting new industries.

Before the first data center arrived in 2007, high tech companies simply didn't exist in the Columbia Basin, Smith explained.

"We weren't training people for that unique skill set locally because it wasn't here," he said. "Since that time those types of programs are being developed and work is being done to put those in place, but as we have new industrial growth something we need to be aware of, especially in the education community, is how do we continue to meet the needs of the new and growing industry in our area? That's something we're always working on and it's harder to do that in reverse."

The outlook for continued growth in the Moses Lake area seems all but predestined. Last year brought Pacific Coast Canola to Warden and the Vantage Data Center, Sabey and Dell to Quincy. The economic development council and other groups are currently working to bring a software testing company, a data center and two food processors to Grant County, Smith said. He added the council is also working with the Port of Moses Lake to attract aerospace firms to the county.

"There has been some interest," Smith said. "We continue to receive inquiries that come in from the Department of Commerce or directly from businesses by virtue of having heard about some of these other projects."

Along with Moses Lake's growth report, the U.S. Census Bureau also released a statement that the nation's fastest-growing metro area between 2010 and 2011 was the Tri-Cities area, including Kennewick, Pasco and Richland, which grew by about 4.3 percent from April 1, 2010, to July 1, 2011.

Central Washington's Franklin County, which includes Pasco, was meanwhile cited as the nation's fifth-fastest-growing county from 2010 to 2011. It grew an estimated 6.8 percent, according to the census bureau.