Go Daddy lands in Hiawatha, moves Cedar Rapids’ jobs there, too; who's stealing what? ask Cedar Rapids council members

CEDAR RAPIDS - Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett called it a “Hail Mary pass” from the start, and early Thursday evening he learned that his long-shot, last-second toss to get Internet firm Go Daddy to move new jobs to the city's flood-hit downtown had failed.

Instead, Go Daddy founder and CEO Bob Parsons announced that Go Daddy would locate its Cedar Rapids-area presence in Hiawatha in the very Hiawatha building where Parsons once ran a computer software business, Parsons Technology. After all, the building sits at 1 Parsons Dr., Hiawatha.

The decision turned out to be a reaffirmation of a decision Go Daddy made back in January.

In a little news story back then, Go Daddy announced that it had purchased the Hiawatha building and would add 60 jobs there and move some jobs already in the metro area into the Hiawatha building as well.

Parsons last evening said he expected Go Daddy to add a couple hundred additional jobs in Hiawatha over and above the 60 in the next year, but it was the prospect of even hundreds of more jobs beyond that prompted Corbett to throw an incentive package at Go Daddy in the last few weeks.

Corbett's action was viewed angrily by Hiawatha officials, who accused Corbett of trying to derail Go Daddy's plans for Hiawatha.

In the end last evening, though, it was Corbett and some of his City Council colleagues who were feeling a little bruised, wanting the public to know that Go Daddy jobs that had been in Cedar Rapids and had grown to number 100 also will be going to Hiawatha.

“I'm happy that the Go Daddy jobs are staying in the area,” Corbett said last night. He had no regrets, he added, about trying to get Go Daddy to change its mind about Hiawatha. And he said, in trying earlier to sell Go Daddy on Cedar Rapids, he hadn't wanted to suggest that Hiawatha, in fact, might be taking jobs from Cedar Rapids.

“We need jobs in Cedar Rapids and we need jobs in the downtown, and we're going to continue to be aggressive,” the mayor said.

Hiawatha City Council member Dick Olson last night said Go Daddy's Parsons stuck with his commitment to Hiawatha, it just took 10 days longer than had been planned what with Corbett's entry into the matter.

Olson said he hadn't changed his earlier thinking, saying Corbett had attempted to “submarine” Hiawatha's plans and lure Go Daddy with a gold-plated incentive package that Hiawatha could not have matched.

At Go Daddy's request, Hiawatha now will provide Go Daddy with a three-year abatement of property taxes, equal to an estimated $336,000, which the city would not have been in a position to obtain but for Go Daddy's investment. The incentive will replace an earlier one, a $125,000 jobs grant to the company, Olson said.

As for stealing jobs, Olson said Hiawatha was doing nothing of the sort. Every time Cedar Rapids attracts new jobs, it's for the good of the metro area, he said. Why isn't the same true when Hiawatha attracts jobs? he asked.

Even so, Cedar Rapids City Council member Chuck Swore on Thursday ticked off a list of companies that Hiawatha over the years has managed to lure from Cedar Rapids.

“Good grief, it doesn't take much research to see the list go on and on,” Swore said. “It's unfortunate that we've looked like the bad guys in this because here we are trying to salvage jobs we already have, and we're being told you just should have sat back on your hands.”

Go Daddy's Parsons acknowledged that Go Daddy already has moved its 100 Cedar Rapids employees into the Hiawatha building, and as a result, Mayor Corbett's offer to get Go Daddy to come to downtown Cedar Rapids faced a tough sell. He called Corbett's offer “very interesting and enticing,” and he said, “It's nice to be wanted.”

In the end, Parsons said he liked the idea of going back to his former company building in Hiawatha, which he said was perfect, with easy access and good parking, in a community that was “enthusiastic” about Go Daddy's arrival.

“Mayor Corbett gave it the old college try, and he certainly got our attention. But it was an uphill battle for him,” Parsons said.

Parsons said Go Daddy will begin hiring to fill 60 positions in Hiawatha immediately. The jobs range from customer-service jobs in a call center to positions in security, marketing, development and network engineering, what he called “a rich assortment” of jobs.

Go Daddy, which bills itself as the world's largest Web host provider and domain name registrar, has its headquarters in Scottsdale, Ariz., and employs more than 2,600 people in the United States as well as in Amsterdam and Singapore. The 100 employees that had been in Cedar Rapids had been working out of an office building at 375 Collins Rd. NE.

Go Daddy's pitch person is race car driver Danica Patrick.