Minden ranked best location in West for post-pandemic corporate headquarters offices

A consulting firm that specializes in corporate headquarter relocation ranked Minden as the top location in the West for post-pandemic corporate headquarters offices.

“Minden — located within minutes of Lake Tahoe and its attractions — is a popular landing spot for fleeing Bay Area and Northern California companies and residents,” location consultants The Boyd Company Inc. said in a report issued at the end of June.

The Douglas County seat is also one of the smallest locations on the list, though the report actually refers to Carson Valley north of town, outside the town’s actual boundaries.

The location has not gone unnoticed by manufacturers already located in Carson Valley.

Minden manufacturer American AVK is expanding its plant off Meridian Boulevard north of Minden-Tahoe Airport by building three new industrial buildings over the next 3-4 years.

At a hearing last month before the Douglas County Planning Commission, the company received a variance on the parking requirement for the area.

Douglas County Planner Kate Moroles-O’Neal said that new technology and robotics has reduced the need for parking, in addition to staff working from home.

“A lot of people are commuting or working from home,” she said. “So it definitely seems to be a turn of the tides as far as how much parking different types of businesses do actually need.”

The town is listed among Boyd’s 30 top locations meeting new requirements, including the effects of the coronavirus outbreak and increased cost of maintaining headquarters in major metropolitan locations. Also on the list are Henderson and Summerlin in Nevada.

The consultant estimates that the annual operating costs of a 75,000-square-foot office employing 200 administrative workers is $18.1 million, easily the lowest cost in the list.

Nevada locations benefit from the lack of a personal or corporate income tax, though it does have a commerce tax for businesses whose gross revenue in the state exceeds $4 million.

Boyd’s study reflects what they call the new normal, including working remote, sales tax structure, operating costs and quality of life.

“As companies reduce their total office square footage, exchange private desks for collaboration areas and add amenities aimed at encouraging workers out of their homes and back into their offices, they are increasingly changing the look of the post-pandemic office and where it should be relocated,” the study said. “Most companies have already embraced some form of hybrid office and are concluding that it makes no sense to pay for office space filled with empty desks and few workers.”

One visionary who saw Minden’s potential early on was industrialist Don Bently, whose company operated for more than 40 years before it was purchased by General Electric around the turn of the century.

Still carrying the founder’s name, Bently Nevada: A Baker Hughes Company, is a global concern headquartered in Minden.

Last fall, The Boyd Company named Minden a top locations in the United States for the esports software industry.

Many of the same factors were listed in that report, including labor, real estate, power, taxes and the lowest annual operating costs among all United States cities.