Governor Cooper: 'Everybody in North Carolina will benefit' from Prescient move from Colorado

MEBANE, North Carolina (WTVD) -- While much of Alamance County bakes in the summer heat, business boosters are celebrating a very cool development: Prescient, a construction technology company, says it considers Central North Carolina key to its plans for national growth. The company's expansion strategy calls for moving beyond its original facility in the Denver area to a second manufacturing plant in Mebane.

"So this is great for us to service the national market east of the Mississippi, and we continue to service the markets west of the Mississippi out of our Colorado operation," said Prescient chairman Satyen Patel. "As a transportation hub and a manufacturing hub here, it helps us a lot. We're 24 hours shipping distance from Maine to Miami on I-95, and 30% of the US population lives within 100 miles of I-95."

That means about 200 jobs for qualified applicants within commuting distance of the Mebane plant. But the reginal benefits don't end there. Governor Roy Cooper praised the company for choosing Durham as the site for its headquarters.

"With the relocation to Durham, everybody in North Carolina will benefit because we have the infrastructure to help their company grow," said Cooper. "It's an exciting day for our state. It's gonna create many more good paying jobs, and it's gonna help our economy."

The HQ relocation from Colorado makes sense to Prescient's chairman, who picked Durham from a group of seven potential sites.

"It nurtures innovation. The technology hub that's created out of Durham, too. The firms coming there, not to mention some phenomenal higher education institutions. NC State, UNC Chapel Hill, Duke," said Patel. "We want to attract a young workforce. We're a high tech company. First and foremost, we are a technology platform, and being in an environment where we can attract talent, maintain talent, is important."

Governor Cooper says the need for skilled tech workers provides a real opportunity for "Our community colleges and our universities, for the workforce training and the critical thinking skills. When you look at the kind of jobs that are here, a high school education is not enough."

Patel says the Mebane plant can produce about 50 buildings per year, from digital design to the completed structures which, according to plant production supervisor Randy Boston, includes elements that go from raw material to finished product in just two days.

"Apartments, assisted living homes, right now we're doing universities, schools," said Boston when asked about Prescient's typical clients.

The address for the new Prescient headquarters in Durham is 115 North Duke Street, formerly occupied by ReverbNation. The chairman says the company expects to add nearly three dozen jobs there within a year.