Category: Economic development
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Bristol’s Newest Savior: a Proposed Casino and Resort
The City of Bristol, having mortgaged its future with a failed mall development project, is betting on another big-ticket project: a proposed $150 million casino with accompanying hotels, conference center, retail, and restaurants built at the failed mall location. The backers assert that the Bristol Resort and Casino would create an estimated 2,000 jobs initially,…
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Virginia Back to No. 1, or Close to It
Virginia’s economic growth rate may have lagged the national average last year (See Don Rippert’s post on the subject), but outside perceptions of Virginia have changed for the better. Virginia ranked 4th in Forbes magazine’s 2018 Best States for Business ranking and 4th in CNBC’s Best States for Business ranking. Most recently, on the strength…
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Who’s Got Broadband and Who Doesn’t?
This map, published today by the Virginia Public Access Project, shows clearly the metropolitan/rural divide in access to broadband Internet access. Some rural areas obviously enjoy better broadband service than others. Look at the cluster of counties to the south and west of the Washington metropolitan area. Look at the cities and counties running down the I-81…
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More People Still Moving Out of Virginia than Moving In
Virginia is still leaking population through out-migration, according to the most recent United Van Lines national movers study, which tracks customers’ state-to-state migration patterns in 2018. The gap between those moving into the state and moving out was small — 48.4% inbound compared to 51.6% outbound, but it continues a discouraging trend of the past…
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Virginia Should Take Regional Approach to Building Offshore Wind Supply Chain
To build an offshore wind supply chain with thousands of construction, manufacturing and maintenance jobs, Virginia should collaborate with Maryland, North Carolina, and South Carolina, concludes a report issued last week by BVG Associates for the state’s Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy. Offshore wind development is advancing rapidly in the Northeastern states, and if…
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The Cloud Services Boom
If it seems like the cloud-services industry is the hottest economic sector in Virginia — outside the new Amazon East Coast half headquarters — that’s probably because cloud services is one of the hottest economic sectors in the United States. This chart published by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows how cloud services expenditures…
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JLARC: Discount Incentive Benefits By 90%
Virginia’s legislative audit agency started its most recent analysis of Virginia’s economic development incentive grant programs with an assumption boosters would quickly dispute – that 90 percent of the economic activity they produce would have happened anyway.
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Amazon, Incentives and Alternate Opportunity Cost
George Mason University’s Mercatus Center does not like the deals struck by Virginia and New York to split Amazon, Inc.’s $5 billion HQ2 project. In a new commentary, the market-oriented research center raises a valid consideration rarely mentioned by politicians touting favored government expenditures of any type: alternate opportunity cost. Money spent on “A” is…
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Fralin Donates $50 Million for Roanoke Research Center
Heywood Fralin, his wife Cynthia, and the Horace Fralin Charitable Trust have announced a $50 million gift to Virginia Tech to attract top-ranked scientists to the university’s Roanoke medical research center. The gift is twice the size of the university’s previous single largest donation. “I came up with the size based on what I felt…
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Amazon Deal Could Create 59,000 Virginia Jobs
Amazon, Inc.’s $2.5 billion investment in major new East Coast headquarters in Arlington/Alexandria will generate $14.2 billion in economic activity over the next 12 years, projects a new study by Richmond-based Chmura Economics & Analytics. While Amazon has committed to hiring 25,000 employees, indirect effects of the investment will create more than 59,000 jobs. “The…
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Amazon’s New Home in NoVa Will Bolster Private Sector
In the lead-up to Amazon, Inc.’s announcement that it would split its massive HQ2 expansion between Northern Virginia and New York, there was considerable speculation that Northern Virginia had an edge among the 20 finalist regions due to its proximity to the federal government. The company was aggressively vying for federal government business, most visibly…
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Amazon Deal Highlights Virginia’s Competitive Advantage Over Maryland
Many Virginians have qualms about the $550 million in job-creation incentives plus more than $1 billion in promised transportation and higher-ed investments it took to recruit a $2.5 billion Amazon facility to Northern Virginia. But things could be worse. Maryland offered an $8.5 billion package — and didn’t land the deal. The Washington Post is asking…
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Whatever happened to Terry McAuliffe’s GreenTech Automotive venture?
Seems like yesterday. In late 2012 Terry McAuliffe was the only Democrat running for Virginia governor in the upcoming 2013 election. One of his central campaign themes was that he was an entrepreneur who would bring jobs to Virginia. He was also an investor and recently resigned Chairman of a venture called GreenTech, a would…
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Where Will 30,000 More Tech Degrees Come From?
There are many moving parts to the Amazon, Inc., deal to invest $2.5 billion and hire 25,000 employees in Northern Virginia. In one of the most important deliverables, the Commonwealth has committed to increase the number of bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science and related fields by 25,000 to 35,000 over and above the…
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The Administration’s Defense of $550 Million in Amazon Employment Subsidies
Critics of Virginia’s deal with Amazon, Inc., have focused on the $550 million in job-creation subsidies as a grotesque example of corporate welfare, crony capitalism, or whatever you want to call it. I totally sympathize. The richest company in the world doesn’t need public subsidies. Moreover, given all the assets Virginia offered — a prime…