Stratacache switches offices, but stays in Ohio

June 30, 2009 by Dave Haynes

Changing offices is hardly earth-shattering news, but it is kinda interesting with respect to Stratacache, which has emerged in the last 12-18 months as a major player in the space.

The guys have money, and a CEO who from what I can tell never sleeps and has seen every airport in North America. The company had a choice of moving to a bigger, flashier local, or staying put in Dayton, Ohio – not your typical home for a technology company.

The company sent out a note today saying it decided to stay put, but moved on up to flashy digs on the downtown Dayton waterfront. This has an urban renewal whiff to it, as the “Riverscape” riverfront area has that newly minted “your tax dollars at work” look.

Says the release:

When considering a new location for its headquarters, STRATACACHE had two clear options: remain in Dayton or move out of the region. STRATACACHE chose Dayton. With cooperation and support from the City of Dayton and State of Ohio economic development teams, STRATACACHE decided that Dayton was the right choice for its corporate headquarters. The economic, cultural, professional and quality-of-life aspects provided by the greater Dayton area and the state of Ohio are a good fit for STRATACACHE’s growth plan and stood out favorably among the choices considered.

One of the mixers I went to while at InfoComm was with another company based in the rustbelt. They were also a tech firm, but staying put made sense for them because the different levels of government were giving them major, major breaks on commercial real estate (as in $2 a sq ft for office space) lowered business taxes, and access to high skill staff at lower wages,as people could buy nice houses for a fraction of what they’d pay if living near a major metro area. Not everyone wants to live in Silicon Valley, Boston, New York or Seattle (or Toronto).

It looks like the same thing happened here, and I wonder if with stimulus money we’ll see more companies either moving to these sorts of areas, or starting up there. A media company with national aspirations needs to be in a major market, but technology companies and service providers can be pretty much anywhere as long as there’s a regional airport in reach and there’s fiber to the building. If I could get nice office space for $2 a foot, even I might be pried free from my home office.