The Puget Sound-area economy has long been red-hot thanks to the technology industry. Two reports suggest some of the growth is spilling over the mountains to eastern Washington.
Suncadia, a 6,300-acre resort project 80 miles east of Seattle, announced multi-year plans to add more condos, golf courses and a major retail community. The project targets urban residents who otherwise would have driven to British Columbia for a resort. The article quotes a Bellevure resident who just bought:
"We always wanted to get some place that we could get to from Seattle," she said. "We were looking at Whistler, and it was just too far."
Meanwhile another kind of growth is coming from tech firms planning to use cheap power in eastern Washington for data centers. Investments by Microsoft and Google have been well reported. Now a Seattle developer plans a facility for smaller tech companies looking for similar services.
Though neither promises massive job gains, diversificatin is good for the agriculture-dominated economy. "It is really a shift and a change into a whole labor market that we have never had before," an official with the Port of Douglas County told the P-I. "We are quite excited about it."