Loveland lands ACE (By Tom Hacker)
Loveland’s quest for the project known as ACE has yielded the grandest of prizes.
The Agilent Technologies Inc. campus emerged on Tuesday as the choice for the Aerospace Clean Energy Manufacturing and Innovation Park.
The center, sponsored partly by NASA, will give the former home of Hewlett-Packard Co. new life — and the city the potential for thousands of jobs.
When ACE locates in Loveland, it likely will draw scores of manufacturing companies, large and small, employing as many as 7,000 people in turning NASA-controlled patents into technology products on a high-speed schedule.
“This is the biggest economic development initiative in Colorado in at least a quarter century,” said Tom Clark, head of the Metro-Denver Economic Development Corp.
“The city of Loveland should be very proud. They’ve been very creative. They’ve done everything right.”
Clark had worked since early January on the ACE project site selection process, in conjunction with NASA’s lead partner in the venture, the Colorado Association for Manufacturing and Technology (CAMT).
‘It’s Good Work’
“We’re extraordinarily pleased to be selected, to be able to negotiate with CAMT, and to be the home of ACE,” City Manager Bill Cahill said.
“This is the start of a lot of hard work, but it’s good work.”
One of that agency’s key decision-makers early Tuesday confirmed that Agilent stood alone as the sole contender among existing facilities for the ACE project.
CAMT board vice chairwoman Florine Raitano also said the agency would consider one, and possibly two, so-called “greenfield” prospects, open tracts of land for new construction.
“Ultimately we will have additional locations,” said Raitano, a key figure in selecting a location for ACE.
“This one will be the first out of the gate, but we and NASA and NREL (the Golden-based National Renewable Energy Laboratory) intend to have other Colorado locations.”
Raitano said locations of the one or two greenfield sites under consideration, and the Agilent selection, would be formally announced as soon as the end of this week.
But she offered no hints about locations of the greenfield candidates.
Tough Choices
“We have two that are so closely ranked that we’re having trouble separating them,” she said, adding that the two were “in close proximity” to one another.
Several Larimer County greenfield sites, including some in Loveland and Berthoud, were submitted as candidates when CAMT requested proposals for the project in mid-January.
The choice of Agilent by the agency’s board means new life for the four empty buildings on the campus at Southwest 14th Street and Taft Avenue that were once a Hewlett-Packard Co. beehive, where 6,000 people worked.
The 811,000 square feet of space in those buildings filled the bill for CAMT and NASA, who jointly wrote the criteria for site selection.
Most significant is what Raitano said was an “ironclad” requirement that the buildings must be ready for occupancy within four months.
CAMT president and CEO Elaine Thorndike said late Tuesday the outpouring from Lovelanders — with emails, letters and even thousands of valentines from elementary school students — played a big role in the selection.
‘Very Creative’
“Certainly the support from the Loveland community for this initiative as a whole was very important,” Thorndike said.
“We certainly appreciated all the proposals that were submitted. They were all very creative, and selection was a difficult process.”
Thorndike was in Palo Alto and Mountain View, Calif., Tuesday meeting with NASA officials and Stanford University entrepreneurs.
The NASA Ames Research Park in Mountain View, along with the Johnson Space Center in Houston, will be key collaborators on the ACE project.
“The enthusiasm and the support from NASA Ames and the Johnson center for this project has been tremendous,” Thorndike said.
“It’s a significant opportunity not only for Colorado, but for the country.”
When Thorndike and deputy NASA administrator Lori Garver signed the Space Act Agreement in mid-December at a Capitol ceremony in Denver, they said the resulting project would bring 7,000 jobs to the selected site, and 10,000 statewide.
“This is just tremendous news,” said Don Churchwell, interim CEO of the Northern Colorado Economic Development Corp. when he learned of the selection late Tuesday.
“To have a project of this magnitude, with so many jobs, is fantastic. If people are looking for job creation, well, this is it.”
Loveland business development manager Betsey Hale, who guided the city’s bid process, said the ACE project would have far-reaching effects.
“I don’t think people yet understand how important this will become,” she said.
“It’s an incredible opportunity for Loveland, for our region and for Colorado.”