How will Intel affect Knox County small businesses? 

MOUNT VERNON — Sherwood, Oregon’s population nearly tripled from 1990 to 2000.

While it’s impossible to attribute that to one company or event, no one can argue that Intel affected the city, which is located 17 miles south of Intel’s largest Oregon campus.

Less than 1% of Intel’s Oregon employees live in Sherwood. It’s a city that sits a similar distance from an Intel campus as Mount Vernon will be from the Licking County fabs in progress.

However, many other businesses set up shop in Oregon in the decades after Intel arrived. Farmer Dave Murray said he remembers Sherwood having just one stoplight when he came to town 30 years ago.

“I moved up here because it was very rural,” he told Knox Pages. “(Sherwood’s growth) is massive. It’s unstoppable.”

Central Ohio may be preparing for a similar experience with Intel factories joined by a Meta Data Center in New Albany and Amazon Data Center in Sunbury. 

Washington Count Commissioner Roy Rogers previously told Knox Pages Intel was like an anchor store in a shopping center.

“The anchor would come in and everybody filled in, but you had to give a little bit of a (tax) break to the anchor to get them in,” Rogers said. “They (Intel) were the anchor for Washington County.”

Sherwood called ‘a developer’s dream’ 20 years ago

Sherwood City Council approved a 125,000-square-foot Target in October 2004.

“The approval comes when local officials are struggling to find a balance between growth and some of the headaches that usually follow,” wrote Emily Taso for The Oregonian that year.

“Located along the edge of the urban growth boundary, this fast-growing community of about 12,000 residents is a developer’s dream. In the past year alone, a Safeway supermarket, a G.I. Joe’s sporting goods store, and a Home Depot store have opened their doors along Oregon 99W.”

Sherwood’s population is now approximately 20,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The city hosts multiple industrial parks and has welcomed advanced manufacturing and other industries to town.

Walmart started construction in 2013 and opened its doors the following year. A 73-room Hampton Inn opened in 2020.

The city’s first live-work space, including five townhome units on upper floors and commercial space on the first floor, opened in 2023. Other townhome units near downtown opened in 2019. 

Sherwood’s Chamber of Commerce executive director and CEO Farrah Burke said Intel’s effect on the community has been largely beneficial.

“For Oregon, I think the big business has been good. Intel and other big businesses have done a good job incorporating themselves into the community — donating to the schools, hiring people who are local,” she said.

“I know a lot of people who work at Intel and I haven’t heard anything bad other than they have layoffs every once in a while like any other big business would.”

Burke said the vast majority of the Sherwood Chamber of Commerce’s member businesses have been operating at least 5 to 10 years.

“We have a huge chunk of small businesses — probably 75% are small, locally owned places,” Burke said.

“It seems ingrained in everyone to support local first. There are some businesses that we just don’t have here, so people will go out of town for those, but I’ve seen people really want to support those local businesses.”

Sherwood chamber, city leaned into ‘wine country’

Burke said Sherwood’s chamber members are pretty varied in terms of industry. There are multiple locally owned restaurants, real-estate businesses and a growing wine sector.

“We just were published in the Oregon Wine Press map for the first time,” Burke said.

“We previously had three or four wineries in the Sherwood area, and now we have probably between 6 and 10, so we’re now the gateway to wine country. We’re hoping that when people go on wine tastings, they will also go into restaurants and shops in our town.

“I think that’s part of the revitalization of downtown, which is a five-year plan.”

Knox County’s comprehensive plan includes principles to “strengthen the centers for each community,” improve major corridors and provide housing choices that could include mixed-use developments and a range of housing density options.

The Sherwood Chamber, of which Burke is the only full-time employee, has about 230 members. Burke said the vast majority of chamber members are small businesses.

“We have a handful of big businesses, but our geography is interesting,” Burke said. 

“They’re a little out-of-sight, out-of-mind because they’re on the borders of town and not where people live. DW Fritz literally carved a place for themselves on the side of the mountain, so they still bring in tax money for the city and schools, but it’s really not impacting our residents’ life.”

By comparison, the Knox County Chamber of Commerce, which covers a larger footprint than Sherwood, has approximately 416 active members. Knox County Chamber director Carol Grubaugh said the top industries include manufacturing, retail and health care.

Sherwood’s top industry by employment is services, followed by manufacturing — which accounts for about 14% of the city’s jobs, according to ESRI Market reports.

Sherwood’s Community Development Director Eric Rutledge said the city has worked to support workforce development programs in schools and nonprofit organizations.

“Our city has partnered with the school district on that, in particular around higher-paying, manufacturing jobs,” he said.

“We need to think about ways that we can provide high-paying, living-wage jobs for the entire community, ideally. 

“Advanced manufacturing jobs are, generally speaking, higher paying than the service sector or something else … If you don’t have the workforce, companies are going to have a hard time locating to your area, so that workforce is going to be a critical consideration for growth.”

Allied Systems Company designs material handling equipment for the wood product industry. Founded in 1976, the equipment manufacturer employs about 250 people in Sherwood, Oregon.

It currently operates near a new business park.

Because Intel’s first facility in Oregon opened in 1976, Allied Systems Vice President of Sales and Marketing Hitesh Patel said no one who currently works at their company remembers how Intel affected their business.

“They have been here as long as most of us have been here, so it’s difficult for us to compare to what it was like before,” he said.

“If I had to guess, I would say there is likely an impact on manufacturing. Certainly their manufacturing employees would get paid higher in that industry than in our industry, and the skills could certainly be transferrable.”