Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 30, 1994 TAG: 9402030004
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CURTIS WILKIE BOSTON GLOBE
DATELINE: JACKSONVILLE, FLA. LENGTH: Long
All of that changed dramatically last fall when the cities were winners in a highly publicized search by the National Football League to find homes for two new franchises. Aside from anointing Jacksonville and Charlotte with ``big league'' status - the competition originally included such better-known cities as Baltimore, St. Louis, San Antonio and Sacramento, Calif. - the NFL's choices underlined the explosive growth in the Southeast.
``The demographics drove that decision. This is the fastest-growing part of the country,'' says Jeffrey Rosensweig, a professor of economics and finance at Emory University in Atlanta.
Inside an arc that runs from Charlotte to Jacksonville, an area ravaged by Gen. William T. Sherman's Union army in the Civil War, there is a spirit of rejuvenation. Shores and islands along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia are being developed for tourism, and inland business is bustling, too.
Industry has been historically attracted to the South by its low wages and lack of strong unions, but newcomers to the Southeast appear to be drawn by a combination of other factors: investment potential, lower costs of living, available land, moderate climate, hospitality and a gentler pace that is tied to the intangible ``quality of life.''
An economic power shift is definitely taking place. While California suffers through a recession and natural disasters and other parts of the Sun Belt are static, the action is moving into an area that was once downtrodden.
Atlanta, which has long laid claim to being the capital of the South, is booming. It leads the nation in housing starts, and the Atlanta Regional Commission forecasts an annual growth rate of 2 percent for 30 years and the addition of another million residents.
Charlotte, now the nation's third-largest banking center, leads the country in jobs creation - more than 30,000 in three years - and has an enviable unemployment rate of about 4 percent. Its skyline, a nondescript hodgepodge a few years ago, now rises up on the North Carolina landscape as magically as the temples of Oz.
Along the Interstate 85 corridor in South Carolina between Charlotte and Atlanta, new industries are growing as rapidly as kudzu. BMW recently decided to build a major plant near Spartanburg, S.C., which will employ 2,000.
Since Florida ``is filling up like a big old sock,'' according to Preston Haskell, a prominent Jacksonville builder, wealth and population are moving up the coastline. Jacksonville now matches South Florida in growth statistics, and the city is luring many companies.
``We're not looking for sweatshop-mentality employers,'' said Delores Kesler, a Jacksonville businesswoman who has been active in the city's development. American Express and Merrill Lynch, among other white-collar companies, have established large regional offices in Jacksonville.
Charlotte has raided the old Sun Belt, the Southwest states. TransAmerica, the insurance company, transferred a division from Southern California. Nucor Corp. moved a steel plant from Phoenix. ``We prospect California as well as the East and Midwest,'' says Carroll Gray, president of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce.
Poverty still clings to some of the Deep South states, but a significant part of the Southeast is ascending at a pace that outstrips the rest of the country.
Hodding Carter, who is writing a book about the modern South, says it is too early for the region to declare primacy. But he characterizes the NFL's decision to tap Jacksonville and Charlotte as ``an acknowledgment of a reality: These vibrant, middle-class urban areas grew up in the South without anyone noticing.''
Although Charlotte's population is only 450,000, Max Muhleman, a sports marketing specialist, says he was able to demonstrate to the NFL that nearly 10 million people lived within a 150-mile radius of Charlotte, an unlikely megalopolis.
Richard Vinroot, the mayor, says that in the 1960s, Charlotte was dismissed as a place with ``a salesman's mentality, a wannabe city.'' Actually, he says, ``it was led by small-town people who wanted to work hard, who took risks that other cities were unwilling to take.''
In the late 1970s, a bond issue to build a new airport was defeated. The city's leadership persisted, and the next year the effort succeeded. The Charlotte airport is now a hub for USAir. Another bond issue, earmarked for a new coliseum, was also beaten, but the decision was reversed a year later. The facility helped the city land a professional basketball franchise, and this spring, the Charlotte Coliseum will be the site for the Final Four.
Atlanta, meanwhile, will host the Super Bowl today, and it is already preparing for the 1996 Summer Olympics, an extravaganza that is expected to employ 60,000 at its height.
While sports is a major factor in the region, banking is at the heart of the region's wealth. NationsBank, with headquarters in Charlotte, is the third-largest bank in the country. Encouraged by North Carolina laws that permitted branch banking before it was permissible elsewhere, the bank built its capital and moved aggressively across state lines in the deregulated 1980s. NationsBank doubled in size a few years ago when it took over the Texas banks held by the troubled First Republic company, once a prized asset in the old Sun Belt.
Two years ago, not long after C&S/Sovran Banks built a tower in Atlanta a few feet higher than the 60-story NationsBank building, the Charlotte bank took over the Atlanta institution.
``We laughed at the time,'' says Joe Martin, executive vice president of NationsBank. ``You have to understand the dominant players in banking consolidation in the Southeast have been North Carolina banks.''
NationsBank competes with First Union, another giant bank with a skyscraper in Charlotte; the massive Wachovia chain; and several other formidable banks.
Ronald Reagan's famous line, ``Are you better off today than you were four years ago?,'' a question that haunted Jimmy Carter when he ran for re-election in 1980, would not work in Charlotte, Martin says. ``The answer would be yes, any year that you ask that question.''
Twenty years ago, Jacksonville was a city with an inferiority complex. It reeked with the stench of nearby paper mills. Its power structure was led by the late Ed Ball, a tightfisted conservative who stood in the way of expansion. Florida-bound tourists drove south through the city without stopping.
Members of the business community began accentuating its virtues in a drive to make Jacksonville, in a phrase used by the Chamber of Commerce, ``a top-tier city.''
With Atlantic Coast beaches a few miles away, deep sea and freshwater fishing at hand, hunting a few minutes drive into the country, and scores of golf courses, Jacksonville promoted its ``quality of life.'' It is possible to buy a home on a golf course for as little as $150,000.
``We've added to nature's blessing with a leading symphony orchestra and three museums,'' says Haskell. ``People are coming here because of our location and our emerging, enlightened public policy toward education and race relations.''
Adam Herbert, president of the University of North Florida, says the institution is expected to nearly triple its 9,000 enrollment over the next two decades. Landing the NFL franchise, he says, was a boon to the city's psyche.
``We had gotten some negative publicity, and this was extremely important for our community. There is no question this will bring the races together. Our communities need some positive things, some heroes we can rally around. Some will be teachers, some will be physicians, and now some will be athletes.''
Mania over the Jaguars, the Jacksonville team that will begin to play in 1995, is so intense that more than $500,000 worth of Jaguar T-shirts were sold by one department store in a week.
The NFL decision to place both its new franchises in the Southeast was surprising, but Kesler says ``it is not a fluke. It is definitely a signal. These were astute businessmen who assessed economic development and population and ended up focusing on the Southeast.''
by CNB