FORT COLLINS — Gov. Bill Ritter signed two business-friendly bills into law Thursday at the new Intel Design Center.
Intel Corp. flew in company heads for the grand opening of the renovated facility in southeast Fort Collins on Thursday afternoon as clouds threatened rain overhead.
Employees enjoyed food and beverages on the lawn while guests and family members toured the facility.
Ritter said the fight to keep Intel in the Fort Collins area was a victory for the city, Larimer County and the Northern Colorado Economic Development Corp.
He said the state needs to provide incentives to help technology businesses locate in the state and companies that already exist in Colorado to grow.
One of the new laws, which was sponsored by Fort Collins Democratic Sen. Bob Bacon, will allow the state to contribute matching funds for research grants.
The other law, from Rep. Cheri Jahn, D-Wheat Ridge, allows the state to remove the business personal property tax from clean rooms, in which environmental contaminants are closely controlled and which are essential to many technological manufacturing jobs.
The research matching grants start out at “only $1 million,” Ritter said.
“But we need to start somewhere,” he said. “We really understand the power of investment in education.”
The design center houses more than 400 employees, most of them involved with computer chip design.
The building, at 4701 Technology Parkway and visible from East Harmony Road, used to house Celestica. But the Canadian company sold its Fort Collins facility, and Intel has spent the past two years retrofitting the building.
In that time, Intel employees stayed in the Hewlett-Packard building nearby. Intel and HP partner on many projects.
Derek Cho, a performance engineer with Intel, said he’s happy to move into the new location for many reasons.
“It’s a vast improvement,” he said. “It’s nice to have everyone in one building we can call our own.”
The building consolidated two of Intel’s Fort Collins campuses, he said.
Eric Borch, a performance engineer, said not sharing a building with another company will remove his confidentiality concerns.