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Regional, statewide challenges could delay economic development efforts
By Matthew French
Staff Writer
With the recent release of an economic development roadmap for the tri-county area, the Charleston Regional Development Alliance now has its work cut out for it and obstacles to overcome to realize economic development success.
Amy Holloway, vice president of economic development for AngelouEconomics that compiled the study, says the challenges are not at all insurmountable, but will require a unified business community all pulling in the same direction to overcome them.
“The mentality here is highly entrepreneurial, if companies are given the right tools and location,” she says. “Young, energetic, professional people are here. Charleston has everything it takes to bring these clusters here, but you have to want it. Charleston has to do something bold to establish itself and demonstrate to the world that you have the brains here to rally the region behind this initiative.”
Austin, Texas-based AngelouEconomics last month released the report, which it had been researching and compiling since August 2004. It recommends pursuing businesses that fall into and support five different cluster areas: aircraft and aerospace; automotive; biosciences; creative industries, which includes historical preservation, architecture, film and visual media, and urban planning; and advanced security, which includes tracking and surveillance, biometric access, and security and intelligence software.
There remain, however, significant hurdles for the effort to surmount before the plan can be put into action. For each of the clusters recommended by AngelouEconomics, the company also outlined the challenges that must be overcome for the cluster to become a reality.
Some of the challenges, such as the abysmal record of the state’s public education system, will present a point of concern for each of the clusters. Others, such as a need to strengthen ties with the ports, will likely not impact biosciences much, but could be a deal-breaker for clusters that include automotive companies and those in the aerospace field.
“We do have a strategic planning committee now, and we are already beginning to meet to develop some of our goals, objectives and metrics over the next five years,” says David Ginn, president and chief executive of the development alliance. “Our sense is that the challenges proposed—education, transportation, a wet lab incubator space—will be the second piece we push for, and that’s going to be a collaborative effort.”
The biggest challenge to the region is a statewide problem. Public education in South Carolina is typically among the worst in the country, and companies looking to relocate to the Palmetto State could take that into account for two reasons: the company needs to provide a good education for its employees’ children and the company has to have a good candidate pool from which it can draw employees.
“The most successful communities at bringing new job opportunities in are those with the top-rated schools,” says Holloway. “There is no simple solution to the education problem. It’s going to take years to work out. I think it will take high-level executives to put pressure at the state level. Politicians never act so fast as when an executive says to them ‘I’m thinking about doing a $100 million expansion in this state, but I won’t do it until… .’”
Other problems that could stand in the way of progress in the area include a comparably poor roadway infrastructure, lack of engineering degrees at the local colleges and universities, the rising cost of living compared to relatively stagnant wages, lower wages than in comparably-sized cities, and a lack of entrepreneurial companies and venture capital in the area.
Ginn says the alliance, as well as the area chambers of commerce and Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments, must do what it can to market the area in the meantime.
“Every community in the country has three or four of these issues,” he says. “The trick is in not hiding them, but rather showing the positive and trends toward improvement. If we can show better school test scores or teacher ratios, and point to the local half-cent and one-cent sales taxes to improve transportation, they can prove that we’re trying to move forward.”
Al Parish, director of the Center for Economic Forecasting at Charles-ton Southern University, says the job is going to require certain strong-arming tactics to make sure the effort doesn’t stall for lack of momentum.
“You’ve heard about people stepping on toes,” he says. “We need people on these task forces who break legs.”
Matthew French is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at mfrench@crbj.com.
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