Briefcase

LaunchPad moving to 1889 Building

Spokane business-services company LaunchPad Inland Northwest is moving its offices to the 1889 Building, starting next month.

The company, launched by co-founders Bill Kalivas and Alan Battle, has used the Holley Mason Building for more than a year.

Kalivas said the new site, at 120 N. Stevens, has advantages that the firm’s current site can’t provide.

LaunchPad will take 1,000 feet on the ground level of the building; close to two-thirds of the main floor will belong to a new wine-tasting business, Nectar Tasting Room, being opened by Spokane resident Josh Wade.

Kalivas said having Wade’s coffee and wine bar as a companion business helped him make the move. The other benefit of the new space, he added, is having street-level access to networking events and work spaces used by LaunchPad members.

Tom Sowa

Dell buys land in Grant County

Texas-based tech company Dell has bought about 80 acres in Quincy, Wash., not far from a large data center operated by Microsoft.

The purchase was confirmed by a Dell spokesman, who said the company paid about $3.6 million for the land.

Pat Boss, business affairs consultant for the Port of Quincy, said a Seattle couple owned the land, which another party was farming for them.

Dell has not said what it plans to do with the land.

“We’ve made a strategic investment in Quincy in a parcel of land,” said David Frink at the company’s media offices near Austin, Texas.

Boss said Dell, the third-largest computer maker, took six months to find a site. Grant County officials, according to Boss, didn’t know until recently that the company scouting the land was, in fact, Dell.

Grant County has attracted other tech companies, including Yahoo and Intuit, to build data centers because land there is inexpensive and the area’s electric rates are among the lowest in the Northwest. Microsoft and Yahoo are both expanding their Grant County data centers.

Tom Sowa

Pierce County bank closed by regulators

Tacoma – Pierce Commercial Bank was closed by state regulators on Friday, becoming the 11th bank to fail in Washington state this year.

Heritage Bank of Olympia acquired the failed bank in an agreement with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., according to the state Department of Financial Institutions.

Pierce Commercial Bank depositors will automatically become depositors of Heritage Bank, state officials said.

Seattle Times