Johnstown wants to woo tech companies to Cambria County

Tech companies and entrepreneurs in Pittsburgh may be seeing real estate costs rise and demand for the supply of local engineers tighten, but the Cambria County city of Johnstown wants to help.

The county wants to pitch its 1 million square feet of central business district office space at bargain rates, a skilled workforce, universities and plentiful recreational facilities to the Steel City’s tech community through a trade mission of sorts June 7. The event is being organized with the Pittsburgh Technology Council.

“This is all community driven,” said John Dubnansky, Cambria County coordinator for the Bridge to Pittsburgh project. “We’re trying to find our spot where we go as a community.”

Johnstown is a rural, post-industrial city of about 20,000 people that is tucked into the Allegheny Mountains about 67 miles east of Pittsburgh.

Health care is the big employer, but Cambria County wants to reinvent itself now that its past lives as a steel and rail center, and more recently, budding defense industry, have all withered.

Helpfully, additional lanes and other traffic improvements to Route 22, the main link between Pittsburgh and Johnstown, have smoothed the trip in recent years. Gone are the once popular bumper stickers: Pray for Me, I Drive Route 22.

Johnstown is like many small towns in Western Pennsylvania, with historic pasts and uncertain futures as businesses and jobs have moved away along with the population. But Johnstown is among the first that aims to hitch its future to Pittsburgh’s fortunes in the startup world.

Here’s why Mr. Dubnansky believes the Destination Cambria tour — the first for the county —

makes sense. For all its attractions, Johnstown has an unemployment rate of 6.3 percent, higher than Pittsburgh’s 5.2 percent. And Pittsburgh has a tech community and emerging startup economy in a city where real estate is at a premium in some neighborhoods.

Add Cambria County’s skilled workforce, a University of Pittsburgh branch campus and the attractions of a scenic region with a rich history, and Cambria officials see economic opportunity in collaborating with Pittsburgh.

A free bus tour, visits to businesses and a networking event with a live band in a former manufacturing building are the way to start, PTC spokesman Jonathan Kersting said.

“It’s a first step to get the conversation started,” Mr. Kersting said.

The PTC website will be updated to accommodate registrations. The bus tour, lunch and dinner appetizers are courtesy of Cambria County.