IOWA SPOTLIGHT
Balance Restored
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ome of Steven Smith's Manhattan buddies snickered when they learned he wanted to relocate his software company from the Big Apple to Des Moines. But now that GCommerce, Inc., has realized a 40-percent reduction in its business costs, it is Smith who is enjoying the last laugh.
"Des Moines may be the best kept secret in American business," says Smith, whose company completed its move there in late spring 2004. Affordable real estate was among the reasons he wanted to base the company in Des Moines. The city's $11-per-sq.-ft. ($118-per-sq.-m.) average for office space, for example, was about one-third what he'd seen in New York. Even more dramatic was the difference in home prices, explains Smith: "Compared to New York prices, it's laughably inexpensive."
For GCommerce, whose software enables coordination among far-flung supply-chain managers, proximity to the manufacturers and distributors who comprise its customer base was a large factor in the relocation choice. The four-year-old company now maintains a 20-person staff at its 9,000-sq.-ft. (836-sq.-m.) offices in downtown Des Moines' historic "East Village," only a stone's throw from the capitol. But Smith's firm is poised to create 150 more jobs in the not-so-distant future, likely tripling its space in the process. "We see ourselves growing five- to six-fold over the next five years," says Smith, a Hawaii native whose earliest exposure to Iowa came as an undergraduate at Grinnell College.
While not among Iowa's largest recent projects, GCommerce is a shining example of what leaders there hope the future holds. "There's renewed interest in the State of Iowa," Gov. Tom Vilsack tells Site Selection. State developers are currently working to convince about 370 companies they should either expand in or relocate to Iowa, Vilsack says. "That's compared to only 51 who were talking to us in early 2003."
"Des Moines may be the best kept secret in American business," says Smith, whose company completed its move there in late spring 2004. Affordable real estate was among the reasons he wanted to base the company in Des Moines. The city's $11-per-sq.-ft. ($118-per-sq.-m.) average for office space, for example, was about one-third what he'd seen in New York. Even more dramatic was the difference in home prices, explains Smith: "Compared to New York prices, it's laughably inexpensive."
For GCommerce, whose software enables coordination among far-flung supply-chain managers, proximity to the manufacturers and distributors who comprise its customer base was a large factor in the relocation choice. The four-year-old company now maintains a 20-person staff at its 9,000-sq.-ft. (836-sq.-m.) offices in downtown Des Moines' historic "East Village," only a stone's throw from the capitol. But Smith's firm is poised to create 150 more jobs in the not-so-distant future, likely tripling its space in the process. "We see ourselves growing five- to six-fold over the next five years," says Smith, a Hawaii native whose earliest exposure to Iowa came as an undergraduate at Grinnell College.
While not among Iowa's largest recent projects, GCommerce is a shining example of what leaders there hope the future holds. "There's renewed interest in the State of Iowa," Gov. Tom Vilsack tells Site Selection. State developers are currently working to convince about 370 companies they should either expand in or relocate to Iowa, Vilsack says. "That's compared to only 51 who were talking to us in early 2003."
