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Wyoming Business Council gives Laramie a record grant

Bob Beck

The Wyoming Business Council voted to approve all five of its Business Ready Community Grants today/Thursday.  Among them is a 5 point 4 million dollar grant to fund construction of a new data and technology park in Laramie.

Council staff had initially recommended that nearly one and a half million dollars of the request take the form of a loan to the city of Laramie, but proponents argued that a full grant would help the city avoid further debt.  Laramie Economic Development Corporation’s Board Chair Megan Goetz says the data and technology park will make Laramie more attractive to diverse businesses.

"They’re the green technology companies that every state in the nation is vying for. They are the companies that have the high-paying wages with the least amount of carbon imprint."

It was the Wyoming Business Council's biggest single grant in its history. 

Laramie City Manager Janine Jordan says that the University of Wyoming and Laramie Economic Development Corporation formed a partnership to address the need to attract high-tech companies to the area after several companies, such as Microsoft, decided to settle in Cheyenne because of the lack of available land with infrastructure in Laramie.

"It was sort of the convergence of all of those facts that made us sit down and get super serious about knowing we have to have shovel-ready land, and shovel ready to accommodate tech users and data center users b/c those are the kinds of businesses our citizens tell us they wanna see in our community."

The Wyoming Business Council also recommended development grants for the towns of Evanston, Sundance, Rock Springs and Rawlins.

Sara Hossaini is a reporter for Wyoming Public Radio. She holds a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She brings a blend of documentary journalism and public interest communications experience developed through her work as a nonprofit multimedia consultant and Associate Producer on national PBS documentary films through groups such as the Center for Asian American Media, Fenton Communications and The Working Group. She likes to travel, to get her hands in the dirt and to explore her creative side through music, crafts and dance.
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