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The company, which already has offices in Powell and Cody, provides English language instruction to Asian students via Internet video conferencing.
Washakie County had been seeking a $2.5-$3 million grant from the Wyoming Business Council to …
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The future of Eleutian Technologies' corporate headquarters remains up in the air. Last week, the company confirmed it was backing out of plans to build a new 10,000 square foot office building in Ten Sleep.Eleutian had eyed a number of different locations for its expanded headquarters — including Cody — before announcing in September that it would be working with the Washakie County Commission to stay in Ten Sleep, where the company was founded and is currently based.
The company, which already has offices in Powell and Cody, provides English language instruction to Asian students via Internet video conferencing.
Washakie County had been seeking a $2.5-$3 million grant from the Wyoming Business Council to build the new office building, which would have been leased to Eleutian. However, the tech company says the process had proven too expensive.
In a Monday interview, Eleutian's Brian Holiday said the deal breaker was a requirement from the Business Council and Washakie County that the company drill and test a water well at the site before submitting the grant application — a process Holiday said would cost Eleutian more than $150,000 “for a building the county would own.”
Now, Holiday said the company is looking at all of its options, re-opening discussions with Cody, and looking at Thermopolis, Casper and locations in Colorado and Utah.
Holiday said Eleutian will maintain a presence in Ten Sleep, but some employees will have to be moved elsewhere, and expansion will have to take place in another community.
“We're going to need to hire somewhere else,” Holiday said, adding that currently, “We're actually out of room (in Ten Sleep).”
On Thursday, James Klessens of the economic development group Forward Cody, said talks to bring Eleutian to Cody would begin again.
“It's not our goal whatsoever to take anybody from Washakie County,” said Klessens.
Rather, he said, Forward Cody's goal has been to provide a back-up option for Eleutian and to be ready to talk if things fell through.
“It looks like it's time to talk,” he said.
