The Colorado Economic Development Commission on Thursday extended $12.9 million in incentives to three Front Range firms looking to add nearly 760 jobs in the state in coming years, primarily in Colorado Springs.
The largest of the three awards went to Project Dinosaur, a Denver-based information technology company with a presence in Colorado Springs that offers enterprise consulting, training, security and other services to both private and public sector clients. The company is looking to build a business unit to serve federal space programs currently based in Colorado Springs.
The company currently has 137 employees in the state and the new business unit is expected to add 304 net new jobs, mostly technical engineering positions, at an average annual wage of $165,076, which is more than triple the average annual wage in El Paso county. The tech firm is also considering Huntsville, Ala., which is slated to become the new home of the U.S. Space Command, as well as Omaha.
The commission approved $8.65 million in Job Growth Incentive Tax Credits, which are future state tax credits tied to the creation and retention of new jobs in the state over an 8-year period.
Project Power, a Colorado Springs startup that provides equipment and technical services for communication providers, received approval for $3.94 million in job growth incentive tax credits. The company has grown to two dozen employees in under three years and is looking to ramp up to 410 employees by 2030, with about 372 of those being jobs potentially coming to Colorado.
The company recently acquired a San Diego firm and is considering that city as well as Tampa as alternatives to growing in Colorado Springs. Most of the growth is expected to happen in Colorado Springs, but Denver may also host an office with a smaller group of employees.
Those jobs are expected to pay an average annual wage of $143,247, which is about 190% of the average wage in Denver County.
A smaller award of $286,696 in job growth incentive tax credits went to a new mutual fund administrator based in Denver that was given the code name Project Points. Fourteen of the company’s 16 employees are currently in Colorado and the company is looking to create 83 net new jobs as it grows. Positions include accountants, fund administrators, transfer agents and paralegals. The average annual wage for the new jobs is expected to be $86,472, which is 115% of the average annual wage in Denver.
Boston, a hub for the mutual fund industry and home to Fidelity Investments, is also under consideration. Being based in Boston would allow the young company to be closer to more of its clients. But Denver also has a high concentration of financial service workers which would support the company’s expansion.
