City hopes new zone lures firms.

Byline: RANDI BJORNSTAD The Register-Guard

COTTAGE GROVE - Economically speaking, city officials have reason to hope their community may be on the verge of getting a new lease on life.

The city recently won designation from the state as an "enterprise zone" and landed a new tenant for its all-too-empty industrial park.

The enterprise zone, one of four newly conferred by the state Economic and Community Development Department, will enable the city to woo new businesses and help existing ones expand by waiving real estate and personal property tax payments, generally for three years.

In return, the businesses must agree to expand their enterprises and maintain an increased work force in the community for at least the three-year period.

The other areas granted enterprise zone status were the cities of Prineville and Gold Beach and Gilliam County, bringing the total number statewide to 48.

Other enterprise zones designated previously include Springfield, Oakridge-Westfir, Harrisburg, Florence and Sutherlin-Oakland.

"In the short time since we got the designation, we've already gotten some inquiries from businesses that might be interested in locating here," City Manager Richard Meyers said. "This is another tool in our toolbox, and we're hoping it will work well for us."

Meanwhile, a couple of home-grown entrepreneurs have committed their foreseeable futures to Cottage Grove, signing on the dotted line to lease 8,000 square feet of floor space in the city's ready-and-waiting industrial park.

Side Pocket Foods, a business owned by sister and brother Megan and Jeff Meyers - she graduated from Cottage Grove High School in 1994, he a year later - markets nonalcoholic Bloody Mary and other "mixers" to liquor stores, bars, restaurants and grocery stores.

Side Pocket Foods will not benefit directly from the enterprise zone designation as it moves to the industrial park on Highway 99 South because the company reached its lease agreement with the city just before the special designation came through last week.

Nonetheless, said Howard Schesser, Cottage Grove's community development director, the firm will pay rock-bottom rent for its space in the industrial park building, both as an incentive for locating there and because Side Pocket Foods will handle all the necessary building improvements without city participation.

The 35-acre industrial park consists of 13 buildable lots ranging from three-quarters of an acre to three acres in size.

The city has constructed one 28,000-square-foot building on the property, as well as a concrete pad for another 20,000 square-foot structure.

Although it intends to retain ownership of the existing building for the time being, the city hopes in the future to sell the other lots to commercial or industrial developers, Schesser said.

The Meyerses - no relation to the Cottage Grove city manager - have been concocting their Side Pocket recipes up to now in a 500-square-foot space. The gigantic leap to the industrial park will enable them to diversify their production and allow their business to grow much more quickly, Jeff Meyers said.

Their goals include developing as many as a dozen recipes for mixing several flavors of margaritas and daiquiris as well as triple sec and other popular drinks.

They also plan to sell several varieties of salsa and to resurrect Jeff Meyers' first marketing idea - jerky - that dates back to his early teen-age years.

"It took three years of research and development to get our recipes where we want them, to get the same flavor and quality as what we could make at home and be able to (package) it for commercial distribution," he said. "This new space will let us do everything we need to do to get everything into production - it should be enough space to last at least 10 years."

In searching for a new location, Side Pocket could find only two other buildings that might have been usable, "and they were both small and old and needed a lot of work," Meyers said.

"We had offers to move to Springfield and Oakridge, but we wanted to stay here, and the city wanted to keep us here. We should be up and running in about a month - we're glad it all worked out," he said.

CAPTION(S):

Side Pocket Foods owners Megan Meyers (left) and brother Jeff toast their upcoming production site in the Cottage Grove Industrial Park.