City studying 'Auburn model'

By Tori Brock

HUNTSVILLE — What makes Auburn, Ala., so great?

Huntsville and Walker County officials want to know, and they wanted citizens to have the opportunity to find out more, too, by inviting Phillip Dunlap, the city’s director of economic development to Huntsville.

Dunlap will speak at 1 p.m. Friday at the Sam Houston State University Performing Arts Center. Admission is free.

The city of Huntsville, Walker County and the Huntsville-Walker County Chamber of Commerce have organized the Economic Development Initiative to examine the lessons Huntsville and Walker County might learn from Auburn.

Forbes magazine ranked Auburn sixth in its list of the nation’s top 10 best small places for business and careers in 2010. U.S. News and World Report also ranked Auburn as one of the best places to retire, and CNN Money ranked it as one of the best places to live.

The city’s population in 2000 hovered around 42,000 but grew to more than 53,000 by 2010. The greater Auburn metropolitan area, including the populations of universities such as Auburn and Tuskegee, grew to near 135,000.

Forbes’ poll considered metropolitan centers with populations of less than 250,000.

It ranked cities using such metrics as costs of both business and living, past projected job growth, income growth, educational attainment and projected economic growth.

The magazine also factored in quality of life issues such as crime rates, cultural and recreational opportunities, net rate of migration, the percentage of sub-prime mortgages issued in the past three years and the number of four-year universities.

Huntsville leaders began looking at Auburn at the suggestion of council member Wayne Barrett, who is familiar with the area and its business success.

In April, Mayor J. Turner, City Manager Bill Baine and council members Don Johnson and Wayne Barrett traveled to Auburn as part of the city’s economic development ad hoc committee to speak to Auburn’s economic development expert Dunlap.

Turner said he noticed similarities between Huntsville and Auburn.

One key difference between the cities lie in how the two municipalities fund their operations. Huntsville collects sales and property taxes. Auburn is funded by sales tax and a 1 percent income tax on all citizens who work in the city.

“Property taxes in Alabama are one-tenth of what they are here in Texas,” Turner said. “How they come up with money is totally different from how we come up with money.”

Mayor pro tem Mac Woodward said he was interested in hearing Dunlap explain the highs and lows of his 25-year economic development experience.

“The positive thing about him coming here is he has a proven track record of economic development,” Woodward said. “He lives in a community that decided that they want to take an initiative for economic development. They came up with specific guidelines on how they wanted to do that.”

The entire community should want to listen to what Dunlap has to say, Woodward said.

“The communities are similar in a way. They have a university, we have a university,” he said. “I think we as council members have to keep ourselves educated and look at things other cities are doing where they’re successful.”

Woodward acknowledged that economic development can mean something different to anyone you ask, but that Auburn’s model of development works for one key reason.

“They looked at their community and their economic area and they tailored their economic development to suit what their community wanted,” he said. “To me, that’s exactly the way you do it. If we can do new things and not change what we really like about Huntsville, then that’s a win for everybody.”

Auburn is evidence that even industrial development can add to a community’s beauty rather than detract from it, Huntsville officials said.

Auburn has several business parks, including one for light industry and one for technology. The appearance of the parks has changed over the years, Baine said, updated with greenery and landscaping. He took several pictures during his second trip to the city in May to illustrate how even a business park can look like a city park.

“You can see the sidewalks,” Baine said. “Their retention pond has a water feature. If you went to their first industrial park, it doesn’t necessarily look like this.”

Baine said he was eager to hear what Dunlap had to tell city and county leaders.

“I asked council for help in telling me what they wanted to do, and the mayor appointed a committee,” he said. “I went back for a second trip because I wanted to know the dirt. You want to know where they overcame the difficulties.”

Johnson agreed, and said he believes community leaders, business owners and citizens will benefit from hearing Dunlap speak.

“We hope all interested citizens will take advantage of this opportunity,” he said.

For more information about Dunlap’s presentation, call the city at (936) 291-5442 or (936) 291-5428.