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No major employers, few new jobs: Collier Economic Development director says best is ahead [Naples Daily News, Fla.](Naples Daily News (FL) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Sept. 30--NAPLES, Fla. -- Eighteen months ago, Collier County hired Bruce Register as its economic development director with a goal of attracting new businesses and creating jobs. So far, no major employers have relocated to the county, scant jobs have been created through the office's efforts and Register applied for a lower-paying job in another county -- which he didn't get. Register, in interviews with the Daily News, said his office is working on a $3.5 million, taxpayer funded, project to create two business accelerators to recruit high-tech and culinary jobs, and his staff is building a database of available land for business use, with utilities, and public transportation access. Register also said he should be judged on the final outcome -- an improving local economy -- not merely on the number of jobs created under his watch. To measure success, the office gave itself a series of marks to meet by Oct. 1 -- Wednesday -- the end of its first full fiscal year. Even though the year ends Wednesday, neither Register nor his supervisor, County Manager Leo Ochs, could say how close the office is to meeting those goals. The development office was to manage 20 development projects -- up from 15 in 2013 -- and to attribute at least 20 percent of the county's job growth, which would equal more than 1,300 jobs, to Register and the office's efforts. County officials couldn't produce evidence of directly helping to create any jobs in its first year-and-a-half, and Register couldn't or wouldn't say how close his office is to meeting the 20 percent mark. "A preliminary report of jobs to this point of the fiscal year would consist of premature estimates in substitute for official job data, which in our view renders questionable results with little meaningful value as an accurate management tool," Register said in a statement released by his office. Detailed job data won't be calculated or released until up to two months from Wednesday in November or December, Register said. Instead, Register and Ochs point to the signs of an improving economy as evidence of the early success of the county's young development office, which operates on $450,000 a year, and its 55-year-old director who is paid $104,500 a year. "We have the fastest job growth of any county in the state and our unemployment rate is down and descending even further," Ochs said. An improving economy Register and the business office also included several economic measures to judge success. It called for Collier County's property value to grow 3 percent more than the state average. It grew 6 percent, which equalled the state average. It called for Collier County's unemployment rate to fall 1 point lower than the state average of 6.3 percent -- it fell to 5.6 percent in August. But improvements in property values, gross product and unemployment have less to do with any local development efforts than with national and state-wide trends in an overall improving economy, said Christopher McCarty, director of the bureau of economic and business research at the University of Florida. "Property values are so dependent on interest rates," McCarty said. "The rises we've been seeing in the state have mostly to do with the Fed keeping short term interest rates low, which trickles down to mortgage rates, and then property values go up because money is available for people to borrow." The Florida economy, and Naples in particular, are dependent on what happens in the rest of country, he said. "Such a big part of the economy here is based on retirees," McCarty said. "In the last recession, it was clear that retirees were delaying that move." Local development offices, councils and partnerships are typically limited in what can they can accomplish for a local or regional economy, McCarty said. What they're typically best at, is landing businesses expansions or relocations, McCarty said. Recruiting jobs Register's office, by design, delegates the actual recruitment of businesses to the Naples Area Chamber of Commerce and to a handful of regional development partnerships. Meanwhile, the four-person county development office is tasked with more behind-the-scenes work -- rewriting the county's incentive program, preparing long- and short-term business plans and helping business owners navigate the bureaucracies of permitting once the chamber -- or the ocean view -- has lured a prospect to the Naples area. "The climate here has been about putting the structures in place -- the tools in place," Register said. "So the focus now is on executing and implementing our plan." Commissioner Fred Coyle said he has no idea how Register is doing and if the development office is on the right track. It's always hard to judge the success of a development arm and the community and commissioners need to stay patient, Coyle said. "In Collier County there has been a no growth mentality for a long time -- for decades," he said. "I can't say that anything tangible has happened yet. I'm hopeful that something will turn up soon. I guess we have to let the process take its course." Ochs and commissioners formed the development office shortly after the demise of the Economic Development Council, which folded in the wake of the losses of the recession and just after the unsuccessful and divisive attempt to lure Jackson Labs to Collier County. Jackson Labs, a Maine-based genetic research firm, could have gotten more than $260 million in taxpayer money to build near Ave Maria, including $50 million in county and local money. The sheer amount of public money on the table ignited a firestorm of debate over the county's role in landing new business and many called on commissioners to clarify and limit their incentive program so the public would know exactly what they're being asked to pay. The county paid the chamber of commerce $150,000 this year for its recruitment efforts and the two sides are negotiating a similar contract for next year, said chamber president John Cox. The chamber heads business award ceremonies and travels to expositions across the country. The chamber leads a committee of dozens of local politicians and business leaders that will unveil a detailed plan on October 7 that aims to outline exactly the steps the county needs to take to recruit manufacturers and tech companies to Southwest Florida. And it's Cox and the chamber, in the end, who are responsible for competing with other Florida counties to entice the next Hertz, or the next multi-million dollar expansion or a series of smaller expansions. The setup between the chamber and the business development office is the foundation to the county's development approach, said Ochs. "I don't have to have a half-of-a-dozen people on the county payroll doing marketing and doing recruitment and business retention, because that's what our private partner has committed to provide," Ochs said. "This is the most effective model we were able to find when we researched this throughout the country before we ever launched this venture." International and tech companies Much of Register's early efforts have been to help spearhead the $3.5 million project to build and start two business accelerators by the spring. The accelerators will work like incubators, helping small companies -- and international companies -- break into the American and Southwest Florida market. The first accelerator is expected to open in North Naples next year and focus on recruiting information-technology and smart health companies. The second is expected to open in Immokalee and provide a kitchen and mentoring network for food businesses. At least two small French companies, whose leaders toured Naples in April, are close to opening offices in Collier County and would likely use the North Naples accelerator, Register said. The project will be funded with $2.5 million in tax money from the state, $500,000 in local tax money and another $500,000 from the local business community Few, if any, companies have been awarded incentives for expansions or new jobs under the county's new incentive program, which was written by Register's office and approved unanimously by commissioners almost exactly a year ago. The program offers a basic grant of $1,500 per job created and another $500 for jobs in environmentally-friendly industries. County officials can offer a company more money if they need to, Register said. "It's like a tool bag," he said. "It's not meant to be the end-all be-all, but it's something that our board has at its disposal to compete against our competitors." Register said he has been working with 30 prospects to use the county's incentive program to expand and create jobs. One local high-tech company plans to expand soon and will be using the county's incentive program to help do it, Register said. "We hope to be able to announce them in the near future," he said. The county's incentive program also promises to help qualifying companies capture state funds -- at which Collier companies have been historically terrible. Over the 17-year-span from 1996 to 2013, Collier County businesses received a paltry $15,000 of the $700 million handed out by the state of Florida to spur growth in targeted industries, according to a Daily News review of data provided by the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. The state has promised incentive money to just one local company since then -- Aeroflex Plainview, a New York high-tech manufacturer with a plant on Horseshoe Drive. The company could get up to $325,000 in taxpayer incentives if it creates 65 jobs here. The county has committed $65,000 in local money for the planned expansion. Past experience Before he started in Collier County, Register spent 16 years in the Hillsborough County development office, where he helped negotiate numerous expansions. The office briefly came under fire in 2011 after it recommended $1.1 million in incentives to retain the jobs of a company that later said it had no intention of leaving. Register came to Collier County with high recommendations from current and former Hillsborough commissioners and economic leaders. He was named one of three finalist for the job by a headhunting firm from a field of 51 candidates from across the country. Register has applied for at least one other job since coming to Collier. In April, he was named a finalist and interviewed for the position of economic development director of Leesburg, a small city just northwest of Orlando. The job would likely have paid him less than Collier County -- in the $80,000 to $100,000 range -- and he would have served a community that is significantly smaller. But Register wasn't picked for the job. "We live in competitive world and it's a competitive business and assessing opportunities is a part of any professional's approach to a successful career and mine is no different," Register said, declining to answer further questions. It would be unfair to judge the success of the business office in its first 18 months solely based on the lack of a new major employer or expansion, especially because of how well the local economy is doing, said Commissioner Georgia Hiller, who has been closely involved with the efforts of the office. "It doesn't work that way," Hiller said. "It's a series of events and a slew of new relationships and ways of doing business that improve the local economy." Instead, residents should judge the office by how well the county is doing in overall job creation, unemployment and in average wages, she said. The unemployment rate here is dropping, property values have significantly risen in each of the last two years, and, according to Forbes Magazine, Moody's Analytics has projected the Naples area to have the fastest job growth rate among the top 200 metropolitan areas in the United States through 2016. In the end, Hiller would rather have Collier County land a dozen smaller companies with a handful of employees, than one large company with a similar workforce, she said. The chamber is talking with six prospective companies interested in opening or expanding in Collier County, said Cox. The county's development set-up worked well for Stefan and Tiffany Meuhlbauer, who moved their small home-run software and web-designing company, Arma Communications, to East Naples from Germany in 2013. To make it work here, they would need strong connections with the business community, Meuhlbauer said. But all they wanted from the county was to make sure it wasn't a place where companies were trying to leave in droves. The company hired its first two employees this year. "We were able to make such good connections through the chamber so quickly," Meuhlbauer said. "I can't believe how quickly we were able to come in and burrow in here. We've grown our business faster than we could have anticipated. Before we came here we had decided to go to Austin, Texas. But after 11 months now, we know that we're going to stay and raise our family and build our business here." ___ (c)2014 Naples Daily News (Naples, Fla.) Visit the Naples Daily News (Naples, Fla.) at www.naplesnews.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |