Category: Economic development
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Virginia Gears up for Amazon HQ2 Pitch
The Amazon gold rush is heating up. Northern Virginia, Richmond and Hampton Roads are pitching the online retailing giant on multiple site in their regions for Amazon HQ2, a $5 billion, 50,000-employee second headquarters complex. Michael Martz with the Richmond Times-Dispatch has the scoop, citing “multiple” unidentified sources. Northern Virginia, writes Martz, has identified four…
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Making the Link Between Higher-Ed and Economic Development
If there’s one thing that big business, colleges, universities, Republicans and Democrats agree upon, it’s that Virginia’s public system of higher education is essential for workforce development, social mobility, economic competitiveness, and building the economy of the future. The unanimity of opinion was on full display today at the 2017 Virginia Summit on Higher Education…
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Why Henrico Likes the Facebook Project
This afternoon I caught up with Gary McLaren, executive director of the Henrico County Economic Development Authority, who addressed the main questions I raised in the previous post. The Facebook data-center project, he says, is a great deal for Henrico County citizens and taxpayers. Facebook will locate its $750 million data center in the White Oak…
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Crunching Numbers on the Facebook Deal
Facebook’s $1 billion announcement is a big deal for Henrico County and for Virginia. The social media giant will invest $750 million to build a data center complex in Henrico’s White Oak Technology Park, and Dominion Virginia Energy Virginia will spend roughly $250 million to supply the facility with “100 percent renewable energy.” It is…
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San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo: No Special Deals for Amazon
San Jose, Calif., Mayor Sam Liccardo, a Democrat, wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal today explaining he will not offer subsidies or incentives to induce Amazon to locate its second headquarters in his city: Why do public officials throw away taxpayer dollars in subsidies while trying to promote economic development? Perhaps because they…
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Bacon Bits: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
U.S. still globally competitive. The United States has climbed past Singapore to become the world’s second most competitive economy — second only to Switzerland, according to the 2017-18 Global Competitiveness Report published by the World Economic Forum. U.S. strengths are its technological progress, capacity for innovation, and sophistication of its business enterprises — all private…
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The Higher Ed Lobby Fires its Opening Salvo
Virginia’s colleges, universities and their allies are rolling out a 100-day public relations blitz to promote “reform and reinvestment” in the commonwealth’s system of higher education. The program, GROWTH4VA, will make the connection between higher education and economic growth and opportunity. Virginia’s public colleges, universities and community colleges contribute more than $36 billion to Virginia’s…
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Is a Washington-Baltimore-Richmond Mega-Region in Our Future?
In 2008 economic geographer Richard Florida argued in his book, “Who’s Your City?”, that the economic units that matter in understanding economic growth and development aren’t nation states, or states, or even metropolitan statistical areas. They are mega-regions — conglomerations of metropolitan areas that are increasingly bound to one another through business interactions. By Florida’s…
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McAuliffe Hires Consultants to Pursue Amazon Deal
Governor Terry McAuliffe has hired McKinsey & Co. to help Virginia localities build the best possible packages to recruit Amazon’s second headquarters, reports the Virginian-Pilot. The state plans to pay the consultant more than $1 million, while state regions will chip in hundreds of thousands of dollars more. That information, which I haven’t seen reported…
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Virginia to Prepare “Robust” Response to Amazon Project
The latest news on the great Amazon elephant hunt comes from Virginia Business magazine. Managing Editor Paula Squires quotes Stephen Moret, CEO of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership: Virginia has a keen interest in the Amazon HQ2 opportunity. We are thoroughly reviewing the company’s RFP, which includes a formidable set of site-selection criteria appropriate for a…
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Be Careful What You Wish For, Loudoun
Loudoun County is going for it. An ad hoc committee has come together in the hope of landing the economic development deal of the decade: HQ2, Amazon’s second headquarter complex. “We will be very aggressive in going after this,” said Buddy Rizer, director of Loudoun’s Department of Economic Development. “I truly believe that we’re a…
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Building an Economy on Outdoor Tourism
As Southwest Virginia struggles to adapt to the decline of the century-old coal industry, the region is taking a radical approach to economic development, reports Rewire. Writes the online Maryland publication: “Historically, natural resources in Appalachia have been mined, but southwest Virginia is trying to re-envision the hills, woods, and mountains of the state for…
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Corporations Tapping Virginia’s Under-Employed Labor Market
A fascinating trend in the national job markets appears to be benefiting Virginia. A front-page Wall Street Journal article today is date-lined Richmond, Va.: Pressed for workers, a New Jersey-based software company went hunting for a U.S. city with a surplus of talented employees stuck in dead-end jobs. Brian Brown, chief operating officer at AvePoint, Inc.,…
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Dreaming the Impossible Dream
Amazon’s announcement of its intention to build a second headquarters complex somewhere in the United States, generating $5 billion in investment and up to 50,000 jobs, sparked some lively punditry around Virginia. Reactions varied widely. Central Virginia would be an ideal location, opined the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The region meets the threshold population of one million,…
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Amazon Sparks Competition for World’s Top Economic Development Trophy
Amazon has announced its intention to build a second headquarters complex, the equal in size to its Seattle headquarters. And localities across North America — including some in the Washington region — are salivating over the prospect of winning what could be the biggest economic development trophy of all time. The potential reward is stupendous.…