How quickly would Greater Des Moines businesses be able to recover their data and resume operations after a tornado, flood or other disaster? Where would employees work if their company’s headquarters were ripped apart or under water? Those businesses that have disaster plans probably send their key people to leased continuity centers in Minneapolis, Omaha or other major Midwestern cities.

Soon, however, companies will be able to lease that kind of business continuity space – and test their plans – without having to leave town.

LightEdge Solutions Inc., a Des Moines-based networking and business computer services company, and LBC Technology LLC, a recently launched help-desk company, are collaborating on a project to build and operate a business continuity center in Altoona.

The 30,011-square-foot Edge Business Continuity Center will be built to withstand sustained winds of up to 200 mph and have access to two separate electric power grids and fiber-optic networks. Half of the facility will be equipped with 288 personal computer/voice-over-IP stations, while the other half will consist of “raw cage” space for companies’ computer systems as well as computer services space managed by LightEdge.

“We think it’s going to add value to the market,” said Peder Malchow, president of LBC Technology. LBC is an abbreviation for the ownership groups in the company: Ladco Development Corp. and Ball Construction Co., which are developing and building the project, and Malchow’s company, Crane River Group.

“The real formula here is to not only offer something for the data and communications connectivity, but also the people portion of your continuity,” Malchow said. “You can back up your data, you can recover your data, but if there’s nowhere for your people to go, then your business continuity plan is likely to fail.”

The building will also serve as a third data center for LightEdge, which anticipates reaching full capacity at its downtown Des Moines and Minneapolis data centers within the next year, said Jim Masterson, the company’s chairman and CEO. LightEdge, which now employs 60 people in Des Moines and 30 outside of Iowa, is currently expanding its space within the Financial Center and plans to hire 15 more people this year.

“For me, I’m literally looking at (the additional demand) coming in the door right now,” he said. “So it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of how fast we can build it to get ready for the volume coming at us.”

Because LightEdge has offices throughout the Midwest as well as Phoenix, “it’s an attractive proposition for those clients to have a backup facility that’s already connected to Des Moines,” Masterson said. “So now you’ve got this phenomenal facility with all these capabilities, not just for Iowa, but for every market we want to set up points of presence in, and right now that’s probably seven or eight.”

In November the Iowa Department of Economic Development awarded LBC Technology $100,000 in forgivable loans and tax credits for the $10 million project, which is expected to create 13 new jobs, including six high-salary positions averaging nearly $48 per hour.

The city of Altoona may consider tax increment financing as a means of rebating the costs of extending fiber-optic capability to the industrial park, said Jeff Mark, the city administrator. The project will benefit Altoona not only by generating additional commercial property tax revenue, but also as a possible high-tech magnet for the industrial park, he said.

Chris Carney, a board member of Iowa Contingency Planners, a networking group for professional contingency planners and emergency management officials, said having a continuity center within Greater Des Moines will benefit local companies.

“It would more easily allow businesses to not only test their information technology recovery plans, but also their workplace recovery plan; to see if you can bring a bunch of your employees to a center and they can actually work in a new environment,” said Carney, who is the disaster recovery coordinator for AmerUs Group Co.

Small to medium-sized businesses will probably have the most interest in using such a center, he said, because larger companies are often tied into long-term contracts or need more geographically dispersed facilities.

Malchow said the center is the first of what could be a complex of three buildings, depending upon the demand.

“Assuming the growth is what we expect it to be, the next building we build would be a ‘people’ building (set up with computer stations and phones) and the first building would be conditioned as a complete data center (for equipment),” he said.

Based upon discussions with potential clients, Malchow said there is already “strong interest” for more than half the disaster recovery seats as well as for at least three-fourths of the data center space.

“Once we get the construction financing finalized, we’ll be able to set the final pricing model,” he said. “But we’re going to be able to provide this type of facility at market rates, so we’ll be competitive with what anybody else is doing today. We just feel we’ll be able to offer a better solution, because it’s a purpose-driven facility.”