It's really no surprise that the high-profile technology firm When I Work Inc. recently decided to leave St. Paul for Minneapolis.
When I Work is growing about as fast as its recruiters can hire. To be nestled between transit stops in the lively area around Target Field should be a powerful advantage in the toughest competition this company probably faces.
This would be news to shrug off in St. Paul, if only there weren't other examples that suggest St. Paul is losing economic steam.
Cray Inc.'s St. Paul operation will soon be off to a new building adjacent to the Mall of America. When Cray announced it was moving to St. Paul with 225 or so jobs in 2009, and with a $400,000 forgivable taxpayer loan, a news account noted it had signed a 10 ½-year lease. It didn't even last eight.
Even the best news of the recent past, the decision by the city's marquee company, Ecolab, to commit to a new headquarters in St. Paul, only meant taking over the building of a company that looks to be on its way out of town.
Paul DeBettignies, a Minneapolis-based recruiter for technology jobs, said that if he were a public official in St. Paul, "I'd be concerned, too."
Concern, maybe yes. Panic? Too soon.
Anybody looking to build a technology workforce in St. Paul needs to acknowledge that the North Loop of Minneapolis has become the cool place to be. Technology firms wanting to be around each other there reminds DeBettignies of the time in the 1990s when technology firms preferred to be just off the freeways in the southwest suburbs.