Developers seek expert advice

By Chandler Myers

Products, promotion and patience are the key tools communities need to land new industries, an economic development expert told local officials and area economic developers Saturday at a breakfast meeting hosted by Coastal Gateway Economic Development Authority.

The breakfast meeting was part of a weekend visit by three industrial site consultants.

“We spent Thursday to Sunday with the site consultants,” said Wiley Blankenship, president of Coastal Gateway. “The comments I received regarding the familiarization tour were very positive. The consultants were able to see many of the assets of Escambia, Conecuh and Monroe counties and conduct a windshield tour of the region. They were able to familiarize themselves with regional buildings and industry as well as experience the flavor and culture of our communities.”

The group met for breakfast at Wind Creek Casino & Hotel in Atmore, with featured speakers including Robert Pittman and Jennifer Tanner, senior principals for Janus Economics. Pittman suggested the “three Ps” are the secret to success for landing a company in a community.

“The first thing you need is product,” Pittman said. “A community has to have something that people in your community want to work with. Look at your community as an outsider to find strengths and weaknesses. This helps with site selection. The second ‘P’ is promotion. A community needs to market itself. A lot of places rely on the state to bring them products, but they need to promote their communities to attract attention. The last ‘P’ is patience. It takes awhile to get economic development rolling. Once a target industry has been found, you need to go after them. Once that happens you also need to have a good labor force. One last thing to know is that low manufacturing is not coming back, but advanced manufacturing is alive and well.”

Henderson said that most companies do not have a preference of where they are located.

“Regionalism is not as important as you think,” Henderson said. “Companies don’t care where they are located as long as they can get what they need from the region.”

Local incentives come into play at the back end of a project once a company or site consultant has narrowed their selections down to two or three communities or regions, Pittman said.

A community is not “buying” a project by having incentives ready and available, he said.

“Incentives cannot make a bad site or community good,” Pittman said. “You must still have the labor force, business climate and appropriate site for the project in order to make the short list. But, incentives must still come into play.”

Marshall Rogers, executive director for the Escambia County Industrial Development Authority, said she came away from the meeting with good information.

“I thought it was informative,” Rogers said. “I thought they hit some good points that we could use in the future to improve our economic development program. We can use it to make sure our documents and submissions are more presentable.”