By Dan McCue
Staff Writer

After a year of laying the groundwork, economic developers in the Charleston region have learned they did not get the $6 million Base Realignment and Closure funding they were seeking to implement the AngelouEconomics report’s plan for local economic growth.

In fact, the Charleston Regional Business Journal has learned, the U.S. Department of Labor told the South Carolina Department of Commerce in mid-August that the Charleston Regional Development Alliance, the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce and others working to recast the community after the closure of the Charleston Naval Base weren’t eligible to apply for the funds due to changes in the agency’s grant-making policies and procedures.

“Needless to say, we were quite shocked,” said the chamber’s Mary Graham.

Representatives of the U.S. Department of Labor did not return calls for comment on what has changed in the department’s eligibility requirements for BRAC funding.

Previously, the region had received a $250,000 planning grant, $80,000 of which was paid to Austin, Texas-based AngelouEconomics to forge an economic development plan to provide jobs for displaced and future workers in the region who would be impacted by the demise of the Navy base.

The AngelouEconomics report’s five targeted clusters consist of businesses in the biosciences, aerospace, automotive, creative industries and advanced security.

For each of these targets, the report identified a variety of support functions and activities, including research and development, manufacturing, logistics and distribution, back office, software and information technology.

By definition, a business cluster is a group of companies and related organizations that collaborate to grow their industry. Using growing collaboration, businesses, regions and interest groups develop greater speed, quality, innovation and critical mass. This in turn assists these businesses in resolving practical issues such as training, infrastructure and procurement.

In the 14 months since its publication, the report’s stakeholders, among them the CRDA, local chambers of commerce and the Trident Workforce Investment Board, maintain that the report continues to grow in its importance as a guide to how best chart the region’s future.

The question at hand is what to do now that the money to implement the report’s recommendations has fallen through.

The stakeholder groups turned to the region’s congressional delegation immediately after being told they were no longer eligible for the funds, Graham said.

“Not for a budget item or anything like that, but simply to get them to press our case with the Labor Department,” she said. “All we want is to be allowed to apply. We think that, at least, would be fair.”

In the meantime, stakeholders such as the Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments are pursing grants from other sources.

“We’re all looking to other avenues, but I think in our hearts we know these are only short-term solutions,” Graham said. “We still don’t believe that the funding from the Labor Department is dead. We just think that, right now, we’re caught up in the bureaucracy.”

Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@charlestonbusiness.com.

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