Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 11, 1993 TAG: 9302110319
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
DISAPPOINTMENT ON THE JOB FRONT
ON TOP of a growing pile of bad news for the region's economy, Tuesday's was of the what-might-have-been variety. Norfolk Southern's decision to locate its national service center in Atlanta, instead of Roanoke, is only a hypothetical loss. It's still disappointing.Of course, the decision removes not a single job from the valley. Unlike at Dominion Bank, Sears, the Radford arsenal and other downsizing employers, the jobs at stake at the railroad were never here to begin with.
Granted, too, the service center will hire mostly from within NS anyway. Had the center come to Roanoke, the major economic impact initially would have been in real estate, as railroad employees transferring from Atlanta moved here. The number of new jobs would be limited.
Granted, as well, it would be foolish to expect such a decision might be determined by anything other than what NS Chairman David Goode, in a local speech last month, called "hard business facts."
Indeed, the odds from the start were against Roanoke. At least half the workers expected to staff the facility already work in NS's Atlanta offices, and the customer service center will be supervised by the operations division based in Atlanta. Relocating hundreds of employees is expensive, which is presumably why Goode had called Atlanta "the most logical site."
Logical or not, the defeat still hurts - for three reasons.
First, it comes at a time when the region's economy could very much use a boost. The center's initial employment of 400 jobs, paying $30,000 to $50,000 a year, would have helped considerably in an economy beset not just with announced job losses, but also with a growing proportion of jobs that don't pay that well.
Second, Roanoke officials had made a flat-out all-court press to lure the service center to the city. It is astonishing that city officials were preparing to put $8 million on the table for site and relocation expenses - $5 million from city sources and $3 million from state funds Del. Victor Thomas was trying to get out of the assembly. That's a measure of the desperation of the times. It's also a measure of economic-development officials' unprecedented willingness to stretch way out the time it takes for deal-closing investments to be paid back in tax revenues.
Third, while this was a showcase example of going the extra mile in pursuit of a prospect, the episode also represents, unfortunately, another example of local governments' failure to get their act together. The wooing began as a regionwide effort, but quickly became virtually a solo drive by the city of Roanoke - especially after the question of financial incentives arose.
Failings in the coordination, participation and sharing of financial costs and benefits of this region's economic-development efforts did not account for the railroad's adverse decision. But sometime, regional leadership must be mustered here, or many opportunities - perhaps not so aggressively or expensively pursued - will be lost.
With economic development, there's always a next time. That's comforting. So is the knowledge that, this time, valley officials succeeded in getting a prospect at least to consider this area when the firm probably was ready to make a decision the other way.
As Elizabeth Doughty, executive director of the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership put it, "We were out of the stadium and we got on the field."
These days, all such comforts are welcome. New jobs would be nice, too.