You be the judge ”“ would you rather have Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. settling in where you live, with more than 800 headquarters employees in tow; or an auto safety air-bag company with less than 300 people?
Pick one: NBC Sports and the NHL Network building a new studio headquarters in your town with some 450 people, with a massive sports entertainment complex next door in Chelsea Piers ”“ or a plastics factory setting up shop with less than 300?
What sounds better ”“ Jackson Laboratory”™s new genomics lab with some 300 scientists and technicians with a history of contributing to Nobel Prize-winning research, or yet another Hitachi motor plant with less than half that number?
Having trumpeted for 18 months the tagline “Connecticut is open for business,” Gov. Dannel P. Malloy”™s message has yet to hit home with the people who perhaps matter most: the publications that target managers responsible for scouting sites for major expansions.
Some dozen publications track incentives and projects for companies looking to expand, including Area Development, Business Facilities, and Site Selection.
In its annual “Shovel Awards” published this summer, Area Development magazine recognized the economic development efforts of South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky and Louisiana, among states with 3 to 5 million residents.
Connecticut was among the four other states in that population range that were left out of the mix, despite an impressive resume of late thanks to Malloy”™s “First Five” program targeting major corporate expansions; as well as expansions that corporations undertook without state assistance, such as Bridgewater Associates”™ lease last year to secure space in Wilton to accommodate more than 1,000 hedge fund workers.
Connecticut has little chance of appearing any time soon in Site Selection”™s annual list of the top 10 competitive states, which in addition to tracking new facilities and expansions also factors in criteria like tax rankings, executive sentiment and total job creation.
Business Facilities is scheduled to produce its own updated state rankings in August. Last year”™s issue excluded Connecticut from its own top 10 list and most subcategories, including areas like education and quality of life that the state touts as its top draws to businesses considering an expansion.
Add in the fact that Connecticut”™s 2 percent economic expansion in 2011 was the second best in the East after Massachusetts, and trailed only Oregon in its eight-state grouping under Area Development”™s rankings.
Is an apparent anti-Connecticut bias permanent with the site selection crowd?
“That would be a good question ”“ why aren”™t we getting credit for the good things we are doing?” said Joe Harbert, a Westport resident who recently joined Colliers International as president of the real estate services company”™s eastern region, having previously been with Cushman & Wakefield. “I think we”™ve done pretty well, and the governor”™s office thinks we”™ve done well.”
In his first month in office, Malloy won a seat on the economic development committee of the National Governors Association, promising it would increase Connecticut”™s visibility in encouraging businesses to locate here, with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on the same committee.
Malloy subsequently moved from that committee, however, to chair another NGA panel on energy and natural resources ”“ perhaps an odd choice for a small state with relatively little to manage in the way of natural resources.
With the Connecticut General Assembly authorizing resources to lure 10 more big corporate expansions under Malloy”™s First Five program, will the word “Connecticut” in time roll off site selector”™s tongues as readily as “Carolina” or “Virginia?”
It could.
“We need to build places; we need to build an identification,” Malloy said at ceremonies in mid-June to detail Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc.”™s New Haven expansion under First Five. “With this announcement ”“ and others that we have made, and others that will be coming ”“ we are clearly moving forward.”
