Integra completes move of HQ to Vancouver

Telecommunications company Integra has quietly completed its trek north across the Columbia River to Vancouver, moving more than 500 employees this month into new headquarters on the former campus of Hewlett-Packard Co. and bringing a healthy jobs boost to Clark County.

The company vacated its Portland headquarters in the Lloyd District to take up vacant space in east Vancouver. Integra moved into 85,000 square feet of newly renovated space at 18110 S.E. 34th St. just ahead of earlier expectations that it would begin its Vancouver operations in June.

Company officials said they chose the Vancouver site after an extensive search because the space allowed Integra to bring most employees into a single building, called Building 1, instead of the two buildings it occupied in Portland’s Lloyd District. The company has retained office space in Portland for its sales staff.

Integra leaders saw cultural benefits to bringing the bulk of its staff together under one roof, which they said would foster communication. The move also was viewed as a benefit to many Integra employees who live in Washington. Integra purchased a Vancouver company called Electric Lightwave in 2006.

“This facility afforded us an opportunity to build out exactly as we wanted to suit our goals for a warm, open and collaborative modern workspace,” Rogier Ducloo, vice president of marketing for Integra,” said in a statement to The Columbian on Wednesday. “We’re already hearing positive feedback from employees about the space and the area and we’re quite pleased to have our headquarters staff here under one roof.”

Integra provides businesses with advanced networking, communications and technology solutions in some 35 metropolitan areas in 11 western states. Its fiber-optic network connects directly to 2,300 enterprise buildings and data centers. Founded in 1996, the company has about 1,800 employees company-wide, serving more than 85,000 customers, according to its website. It reported $591.2 million in revenue in 2013, down slightly from $594.4 million the previous year.

Integra’s move takes a large bite out of the 735,000-square-feet of office space in four buildings at the former home of HP’s consumer printer division, now owned by Vancouver silicon wafer manufacturer SEH America Inc. The company, a subsidiary of Japan’s Shin-Etsu Handotai Group, purchased the 174-acre campus for $55 million in 2009 with the idea of possibly establishing a solar facility on the site. Those plans were put on hold indefinitely as the global economy declined.

HP leased its offices from SEH until 2011, when it moved into space in the former Nautilus headquarters off Southeast 164th Avenue and Mill Plain Boulevard. It now shares the office building with PeaceHealth, a health care company that moved its headquarters from Bellevue to east Vancouver in 2011.

Evergreen Public Schools also secured space at the former HP campus as a temporary home for Crestline Elementary School, which was destroyed by fire on Feb. 3. The school is occupying the 165,000 square-foot Building 2 while a replacement school is under construction.