Tech Companies Get New Quarters

Thu., April 6, 2000

By Lorie Hutson lorieh@spokesman.com (509) 459-5446

Two technology companies launched last year by entrepreneur Bernard Daines are moving to a new headquarters in Liberty Lake.

World Wide Packets will relocate to the corner of Mission and Molter by the end of April, with Webiness Inc. moving into the building later, said marketing director Robin Toth.

Daines purchased the building for about $2 million, and plans to build another $2 million addition mirroring the existing structure. The three-story expansion should be finished in about four months and triple the floor space, Toth said.

World Wide Packets and Webiness, which are moving from its offices near Nora Avenue and Pines Road in the Spokane Valley, will share the building with dentist Ross Simonds.

The center is expected to become the permanent home of Webiness, which specializes in designing and hosting Web sites, Toth said.

Daines launched Webiness last summer with just four employees, and now has a staff of 30. By the end of the year, Webiness is expected to have 75 people working there.

“(The new building) will probably accommodate us until the end of the year,” Toth said.

Before then, Daines hopes to find a place to build a 200,000-square-foot office and manufacturing plant for World Wide Packets.

World Wide Packets is developing networking equipment to bring high-speed Internet connections to homes, offices, hotels and others using Gigabit Ethernet technology and fiber optic wire. Also called broadband communication, the technology promises to speed up Internet connections by transmitting data thousands of times faster than cable modems.

The company has 28 employees and plans to add 10 new positions by the end of the month. World Wide Packets expects to have 100 employees by 2001, Toth said.

Webiness and World Wide Packets will host an open house at the new building in Liberty Lake on April 28.

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