New Internet connections portrayed as way to give historic building more value
The 107–year–old Fernwell Building at Riverside and Stevens downtown in making a leap into the future with the addition of new wiring and other gear that will allow for full–time, high–speed access to the Internet.
Before the end of the month, every tenant in the six–story building should be able to plug their computers into a state–of–the–art Internet connection, says Roy Massena, vice president of sales and marketing at Skillnet Corp., a Spokane company that is installing much of the new equipment and wiring in the building. Skillnet also essentially will act as the Internet service provider for the building.
Wiring historic buildings in downtown areas with the latest in technological capability is seen as a way both to meet the office needs of young technology companies, which don’t need expensive modern office space, and to give the old building added economic value. The idea has worked so well in some places that it’s now seen by some as a useful urban renewal tool.
For Skillnet, the project at the Fernwell Building was a natural. The software–development company was “looking for rock–solid Internet access,” says Massena.
Using the new connection, users can get on the information superhighway more quickly and once there can move around at much greater speeds, Massena say. The technology transmits data at about 1.5 megabits per second – or roughly 52 times as fast as 28.8 baud modem.
Adding the new gear and wiring will cost in excess of $100,000, says Tom Power, who manages the building and is one of its owners. However, he says, the project should pay off by attracting more high–tech tenants that require high–speed communications.
“I’m amazed at the level of interest we’ve had” from potential tenants, says Power. “We’ve got a huge opportunity here.”
The first tenants to need that technology will be Skillnet, which has offered a couple of different products via the Internet since 1993. Massena says Skillnet, which has five employees now, is developing a software system that will allow people looking for jobs to file resumes on the Internet and for employers to search among those resumes for potential employees.
He says that the market for employment–related services on the Internet is expected to soar to $333 million by the year 2001, and Skillnet is predicting that its services on the ‘Net could grow quite rapidly.
Skillnet began working with Power to bring upgraded technology to the Fernwell for itself, then Power decided that all tenants in the building should have access to that same technology.
GST Telecom Washington brought fiber-optic cable into the brick building and will install other needed equipment there. GST’s fiber-optic system offers a number of paths to get the Internet, which Massena says helps ensure that services won’t be interrupted.
Skillnet, meanwhile, is installing cable to the individual offices in the building, Massena says. GST, Skillnet, and the Fernwell are paying for the improvements, and Skillnet will receive a monthly fee from other tenants for use of the Internet connection. The fee is slightly higher that the typical cost of dial-up Internet access. Skillnet, in turn, will pay GST for use of the fiber-optic line, he says. Steve Simmons, co-director of the software engineering lab at the Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute, says the Fernwell is the first multitenant office building downtown “to deliberately wire itself to attract high-tech companies. They are the trailblazers in that sense.”
Simmons is helping to promote an idea called the “Terabyte Triangle,” which includes wiring downtown for high-speed Internet access to attract software developers and other high-tech concerns to Spokane’s core. He says the Fernwell Building probably will become a demonstration site for such technology.
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