BAXTER - When the office buildings first went up around the water garden in Baxter's first conservation design office park, the idea was to construct an office building each year. It was 2006, after all. Business was booming.
Fairview Conservancy provided a 4.5 acre demonstration project aimed, in part, at increasing awareness of conservation design alternatives for commercial structures. It included low-impact development, green building alternatives, a central rain-water garden with native plants and tree preservation on the perimeter. In 2008, the office park won the Minnesota Environmental Initiative Award for green building and development.
Plans were to build an office building each year until the park was complete with eight. And that's what happened in 2006, 2007 and 2008.
Then, in 2009, the building stopped.
The Great Recession that began in the winter of 2007 would officially end 18 months later in the summer of 2009. But its effects lingered long after. Building went from boom to bust. But in 2014, the long drought appeared to be over.
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Office buildings going up in Baxter
Office buildings are going up at multiple locations in Baxter, including two at the intersection of Falcon and Isle drives.
Nystrom and Associates is behind one of the office buildings and McDermott dental offices are going up across the street. The two new office buildings will expand upon established health services on Isle Drive.
"The good news is there is a lot going on," said Janelle Riley, president of Syvantis Technologies, owners of the Fairview Office Park. "The builders are starting to get really busy again. They've been building retail facilities obviously in the last couple of years and they've been building industrial, but they just haven't done office/service. So it's good that we are finally starting again."
The new office building at Fairview Office Park is 3,500 square feet. It will be home to Vercon, the company created when Northway Construction in Baxter merged with JP Structures. Vercon, which links and leads the two businesses as a parent company, has offices in Baxter, Menahga and Minneapolis.
Northway Construction was founded in part by Steve Northway in 2006. The company specializes in custom home building and damage restoration. Projects include multi-million lake homes in the lakes area and in the Twin Cities. Founded in 2004, JP Structures specializes in design, construction and management of commercial building projects. Northway had residential customers with commercial needs and JP Structures had commercial customers with residential needs. The vision for the combined company was to provide a more complete line of services to meet a customer's life cycle of building needs. Vercon will construct the office building at Fairview and then lease it from Syvantis. The office park design allows customers to either buy or lease space.
Since Vercon is a construction company, there are higher-end touches such as a stone fireplace. The company wants to create a warm, welcoming atmosphere for employees and customers versus a cold corporate feeling. Vercon reported Fairview was picked because of its central location, easy access and quiet setting.
This will be the fourth office building at Fairview. Riley said tenants tend to be established, growing firms because of the size of the office buildings. Other companies in the office park include: Baxter Chiropractic, Ameriprise Financial, Farm Bureau Insurance, Bobbie Sarff Law Office, Deco Inc.
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Vercon looks to add staff
Stephen Halonen, Vercon CEO, started JP Structures with Nick Yiltalo. The first year the company earned $500,000 in revenue. Last year, the company reports it earned in excess of $26 million in revenue.
Halonen said Vercon as a whole company expects to grow staff by 20 percent this year.
"I see things on a significant uptick," Halonen said, adding right now the company's limitations isn't about so much finding work but is more about hiring qualified staff, in the top 10 percent of the industry, to get the work done.
"We're actively trying to hire good people every day," Halonen said. "We are really trying to hire people who are looking for a career for the rest of their lives."
Halonen said Vercon's passion is developing building solutions.
"We have significant plans for growth in the Brainerd lakes market," Halonen said, adding the new office building is step in that direction.
The lakes area, Halonen said, is on track or slightly ahead of others areas in the economic recovery with the exception of western North Dakota, one of the few places that didn't experience a recession.
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Syvantis sees economic growth trend across industries
"It's been such a drought and it's great to start seeing things pick up," Riley said. "Hopefully we will be able to have more of these and start moving forward - again."
Syvantis Technologies was founded in 2000. The company offers enterprise class (applications or platforms for business computing solutions across company sizes) Microsoft technologies via the cloud.
Technology companies can be good bellwethers of economic conditions.
After the recession hit, things started picking up for Syvantis as early as 2009. Syvantis went heavily into cloud computing. Companies that had been downsizing staffs looked for automated systems to help remaining employees handle the workload.
Last year, Syvantis, under the name of Syvantis GP Online developed a platform to sell Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly Great Plains) enterprise resource planning system business management software within Microsoft Azure Cloud.
Syvantis has customers in construction, manufacturing and retail with about 50 percent in the local area and the rest national clients. High growth is seen on the East Coast, particularly in New York and New Jersey, in the south and at a bit slower pace, but still growing in the lakes region.
"On the business side of things our clients are extremely busy," Riley said. Growth is apparent as clients add computer users, signalling new jobs.
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Syvantis, headquartered in one of the Fairview Office Park offices, nearly doubled in size in the last year. Riley said they are so full now they are looking at an expansive closet for extra office space. Syvantis grew from eight employees to 15 employees in one year.
Back in 2009, Riley said she kept thinking things would be better the following week. Then it was next year.
"It can't just stay like this," she remembers thinking. Now their customers are seeing a remarkable turnaround.
"The growth wasn't just small, it was significant," Riley said.
Riley said a customer on the East Coast went from $2 million gross revenue per quarter at the height of the recession to $2 million or $3 million gross revenue per month.
"We're adding new users for our clients every day," Riley said. "That's how we know they are growing. ... It's been accelerating over the last two years every month is busier and busier, it's good. It's good for everybody."
