It’s no secret that Redmond is booming.

In 2022, the population was increasing by about 7.8 people per day. Businesses bought up downtown storefronts lickety-split. Industries broke ground at a rapid pace, adding to the economy and fleshing out the city’s position as a center for manufacturing and industry.

Many in the business community say this was not a fluke. Instead, the boom came from a multitude of factors and a group of individuals dedicated to growing the city’s prominence in the state.

According to Bruce Barrett, A Windermere Commercial Real Estate Broker for Redmond, there was a push in the late 1960s and early 1970s to play up the city’s nickname of “Hub City,” which it received for falling in nearly the center of the state and its construction around the convergence of two highways.

“Their whole concept was to create an industrial opportunity for Redmond. Instead of a resort, it’d be more for business,” Barrett said. “I think it was that vision that those city fathers had to put it on that track.”

It may have taken a while for the dreams of the 1970s to get rolling, but some 50 years later this dream is finally coming true.

“Redmond is the glowing lightbulb right now,” he said.

A hub of industry

In the industrial and manufacturing sector, Barrett said, it’s difficult to justify starting a business in Bend compared to Redmond. In Bend, the opportunity for growth lies in increasing density to be located in the urban core and there is little industrial land available.

“Bend has struggled with having enough land,” said Steve Curley, director of Redmond Economic Development, Inc. “Redmond has land available for companies.”

According to Curley, this includes the largest lot of land in the state with over 1,700 acres of developable industrial land.

Industrial land in Bend also costs more. According to the 2022 Compass Commercial Real Estate Services Q4 report, the average rent in Redmond for industrial spaces is between $0.85 and $1.10 per square-foot per month. In Bend, that number sits at $1.14 or between $1.25 and $1.35 for “premiere” industrial space.

“It’s more psychological than monetary,” Barrett said. “Money-wise it doesn’t make much sense.”

This also plays into the city’s venn-diagram of transportation. Redmond sits in nearly the center of the state, runs the region’s largest airport and commands the confluence of Highway 97 and Highway 126.

“Within Central Oregon, we are in the Center,” said Curley. “Redmond is a good fit geographically.”

These factors have helped attract a wide-ranging mix of industry, business and manufacturing.

Industries have swarmed to Redmond in recent years including MedLine Renewal, BasX, Fuel Safe Racing Cells and Oregon’s Wild Harvest. Also included are aviation companies who chose Redmond for its proximity to the biggest airport in the region such as RDD Enterprises and Stratos Air Craft.

“We have a strong history of aviation workforce here and talent,” Curley said. “(There’s) very diverse manufacturing that we’re seeing.”

Many of these are located in Redmond’s Desert Rise Industrial Park and there doesn’t appear to be a slowdown. Transportation companies such as Diamond Line Delivery plans to expand into a new 7,000 square-foot facility and Western Bus Properties, LLC., has made moves to jump into the industrial park with a 16,130 square-foot bus servicing facility.

And, bigger businesses are still trying to get into the market. These include a new 27,000 square-foot production facility for Wild Mike’s Pizza and a 26,000 square-foot facility for BridgeMasters, Inc., which manufactures machinery for bridge repair and maintenance.

These moves are shown in economic data as well. According to REDI, Redmond’s manufacturing employment grew by 88.4 percent between 2010 and 2019. Statewide, that number sat at 21 percent.

According to the Compass Commercial report, Redmond’s industrial vacancy rate sits at 3.25 percent — increasing from 1.38 percent in Q3 after the city added a new 58,586 square-foot industrial park in the last quarter. Additionally, the report stated that there is 50,000 to 70,000 square feet of industrial space slated for the first two quarters of 2023.

Curley said Redmond is starting to run out of industrial land availability. There’s industrial land in the planning stages and more on the horizon, he said, but it’s not quite ready yet.

This includes the 137-acre land-swap of county-owned land for an industrial park east of 17th Street that has been held up due to a prevalence of homeless encampments in the area.

Graham Dent, broker and president of Compass Commercial, wrote that they had dubbed Redmond “The Land of Opportunity” in 1998 and that the city has unlocked that opportunity since 2008 and 2009.

According to Dent, “The market that used to be known as the ‘alternative’ (to Bend) by commercial real estate investors, developers and tenants may soon emerge as the preference.”