Fernwell Takes Lead In Developing ‘Terabyte Triangle’

Partners in a project designed to attract high-technology companies to Spokane’s downtown core performed a small demonstration Tuesday of what they have to offer.

The Fernwell Building, W505 Riverside, is the first multitenant office building in the area to wire itself with high-speed Internet connectivity capabilities to attract software developers, multimedia companies and computer service providers.

According to Steve Simmons, the building is “the epicenter of the effort to fill downtown Spokane with entreprenurial technology developers who can put a prosperous new wing onto the downtown economy.”

Simmons, a professor at Eastern Washington University and co-director of the Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute’s software engineering lab, conceived of “the Terabyte Triangle,” which encompasses most of downtown.

Simmons and other boosters hope buildings throughout that area will follow the Fernwell Building’s example and wire themselves with high-speed Internet connectivity capabilities.

The owners of the Fernwell building entered into a partnership with a tenant called Skillnet - an Internet service provider - and GST Telcom Washington to rewire the Fernwell. GST is the Vancouver, Wash.-based company that has invested $10 million to lay high-capacity fiber optic cable throughout downtown in hopes of providing Internet service to clients like Skillnet and other Fernwell tenants.

They offer direct connections to the Internet without going through modems and Internet providers like America Online. With direct connections, users don’t experience delays or busy signals signing onto the Internet and fewer service interruptions.

A representative of Skillnet demonstrated Tuesday how the Fernwell building’s infrastructure allows almost instant access to and response from the Internet.

Tom Power, a member of the partnership that owns the Fernwell, said the Terabyte Triangle concept differentiates the office building from larger downtown competitors.

“We are a smaller property,” Power said, “one of the less prominent of the top 10 office buildings downtown, and we wanted to make a place in the market for ourselves.”

Apparently the strategy is working.

In the 60 days the Fernwell partners have been marketing the building’s new capabilities, Power says they have had 15 to 20 inquiries, “and that’s a huge number in my business.”

Three tenants have already relocated to the building specifically because of the Internet capabilities, and “the existing tenants are very excited about it,” Power said.

SIRTI and the Riverpoint Higher Education Park are actively pushing the Terabyte Triangle concept because it fits with their mission of tying educational resources in the area to economic development.

“It is my hope,” said Simmons, “that the Terabyte Triangle and the Internet will do for 21st Century Spokane what the railroad did for 19th Century Spokane - provide a powerful engine on which we can build a prosperous economy.”

, DataTimes