A high-tech venture on an Alberta First Nation that was supposed to create 20 jobs is sitting empty today with no clients or employees, a failure band members now attribute to the difficulty of overcoming public attitudes toward aboriginal businesses.

"It's a great setback," said Raymond Arcand, former chief of the Alexander First Nation. "I don't know how we're going to recoup. I don't know what we're going to do with a new building that has technology set up in there."

In May 2007, data storage company Alexander Internet Technologies was launched on the Alexander First Nation, located northwest of Edmonton.

The company was a partnership between the Alexander First Nation and a non-aboriginal company called eNation, which builds and manages data centres across North America. eNation invested $12 million into the venture, which would provide clients with a secure facility to store data such as health and financial records.

In March, the state-of-the-art facility was shuttered after it was unable to attract enough clients to stay open, an outcome that puzzles Arcand, who was chief when the centre first opened with such high hopes two years ago.

"It was the right time to do it and the need for servers and the building and the environment was all there," he said. "We thought it was going well ... but at the end of the day, nothing panned out."

Location on reserve a problem for clients?

Each of the partners in the business have conflicting theories about what went wrong.

In its early stages, the data centre was originally supposed to house servers for online gambling sites. But provincial legislation banned these types of facilities from operating in Alberta, so the band shifted gears and the centre opened its doors as a corporate computer data storage centre.

But the venture's initial incarnation may have created a perception problem for potential clients, said Cheryl Savoie, director of information technology for the Alexander First Nation. She also thinks having the business located on a First Nation may have also been a roadblock.

"The perception being that there [were] no technical capabilities within the facility. That obviously was a challenge for us," she said.

Arcand puts it more plainly.

"Maybe the businesses didn't want to come on to the reserve. You can bend over backwards as much as you can, but if the businesses outside of our communities don't want to come into our community, there is a problem."

Different business philosophies at play, partners say

But there are also suggestions the relationship between the Alexander First Nation and its partner, eNation, may have been strained due to a difference in business philosophies.

"We're driven to drive business, meet our shareholders' obligations and make sure that people that have invested in this data centre are actually going to make money," said eNation co-CEO Robert Zdanewicz.

"Sometimes their attitude is, 'Well, we're not going to do anything. You guys just go do what you have to get done.' So we do ... but sometimes it's too fast of a pace for them, and then it goes back to council and they've got to decide, and talk, and think."

Savoie defends that approach. She says the Alexander First Nation puts relationships ahead of money and wants to build the business over the long-term.

Questions about province's role

Gene Zwozdesky, the province's minister of aboriginal relations, said he is disappointed the venture hasn't been successful. While he said he will try and promote the centre more aggressively, the band needs to do the rest.

"I want First Nations people to know that we're there to help, not to get in the way," he said. "We can point out some strategies, but it's up to them to bring them into effect."

The Alexander First Nation and eNation are continuing their efforts to land a government deal and prove they can handle the needs of a big client.

"This facility was built with absolutely no government funding, and the intent was that the government departments would be the clients, and we would be a business that would offer some services to them," Savoie said. "And there is a need within government for a facility and for services that we're providing. But the perceptions, and the trust, and the relationships have to be built."

For now, the doors of the data centre remain closed indefinitely. But Savoie says the First Nation is committed to attracting the clients it needs to turn the closure into a temporary setback.

With files from Isabelle Gallant