Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 18, 1994 TAG: 9412190012
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: G1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF DEBELL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Experts say it's not all that critical in recruiting industry, though there are times when it does get into the process.
"It depends on the nature of the decision," said New Jersey-based economic development consultant Larry Moretti. "Each type of operation has its own set of parameters."
For example, if a company is bringing in lots of workers, quality of life will be important. The workers will want to know about things like school quality and housing costs.
This tends to be the case with corporate headquarters, research-and-development operations and other businesses that employ disproportionate numbers of professional, technical and managerial types.
"These are people who are hard to recruit and hard to keep," economic development consultant Ross Boyle said.
They have disposable income and they can work wherever they want. They care about schools, recreation, cultural amenities, crime and the like, and it behooves their employer to consider such quality-of-life indicators in choosing his location.
It also behooves localities to cultivate and maintain a quality of life that is attractive to such businesses because they are among those most coveted by economic developers.
"It's a matter of being on the front edge," said Roger Stough of the Institute of Public Policy at George Mason University.
Another group for whom quality-of-life factors can be important is the so-called "lone wolves," independent operators who can base themselves almost anywhere they want. They need only telephone service and power for their computers, and a good airport.
"Technology allows them to work outside the context of conventional site-selection criteria," Moretti said. "They are able to make the ultimate quality-of-life decision, to locate solely because of quality of life."
Ross Boyle is a lone wolf. Formerly a Northern Virginian, he recently found quality of life in the Colorado mountain town of Vail: scenery, clean air, skiing, access to the Denver airport and the necessary communication connections.
"There are an awful lot of people like me out here," Boyle said.
\ If a company hires locally, as tends to be the case in manufacturing, quality-of-life isn't so much of a consideration. The work force is already in place and knows what it's like to live in the community.
"Most production people are hired from the local market," Boyle said. "They've already made the decision of where to live."
In a "cut-and-sew" garment-making operation or a sausage factory, he said by way of example, production costs are what count most. Quality of life is a "negligible" consideration.
Ed Couverette, head of Couverette Building Systems, moved his company from California to the Roanoke Valley in 1990. He likes the valley as a place to live and do business. He says his employees, some of whom are transplants from the West Coast, like it too.
But that's incidental. Couverette, who has homes on both sides of the country, moved his business solely to gain a strategic eastern corridor shipping location.
"If you're a businessman, you're not really concerned with quality of life unless you're going to live there yourself," he said.
Beth Doughty, executive director of the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership, said quality-of-life factors by themselves usually won't get a community into the running for a prospect; but they can make a difference in whether the prospect ultimately is landed.
"My theory is it can hurt you but it can't help you," Doughty said.
Darrell Parker, head of the Center for Economic Development at Winthrop College in Rock Hill, S.C., would certainly agree with the "hurt" part of Doughty's theory. He said it's vital for communities to maintain infrastructure and keep up physical appearances lest a visiting business prospect form an unfavorable impression from something as simple as potholes or a patch of building blight on the way in from the airport.
"It could be something that keeps you from even getting into the discussion to begin with," Parker said. "You could lose it before you even get started."
Assuming that kind of disaster is averted, site-seeking companies typically want first to know about land prices, taxes, the work force, transportation and so on. In other words, business initially takes precedence over quality of life.
"When they're making the hard decisions it's not a factor," said Franklyn Moreno, executive director of the New River Valley Economic Development Alliance. If quality of life comes up at all, he said, "it's when you get to the point of having met the early requirements."
\ An example: when communities that are competing for an industrial prospect come out even on business considerations.
In that case, it can be something under the heading of quality of life that breaks the tie: the climate or the crime rate or high-school test scores or any number of so-called "soft" factors taken singly or in combination.
"When it comes down to the final choice between two or three sites," Virginia Tech economist Tom Johnson said, "quality of life can be very important."
Kent Greenawalt moved his company from Iowa to Roanoke in the late 1980s primarily to take advantage of the valley's distribution resources.
"Roanoke is an incredibly good spot to ship a package out of," said the president of Foot Levelers Inc., makers of chiropractic care products.
But Greenawalt also chose the valley over 100 other communities in 10 states because of what he saw as quality-of-life advantages: banking services, the airport, cultural amenities (including civic centers), housing availability and affordability, recreational opportunities and relief from the fierce Midwestern winters.
"Roanoke offers the benefits of a larger city but you have the feel of a small town," he said.
Though typically not critical in site-selection decisions, and frequently not a factor at all, quality-of-life considerations obviously cannot prudently be ignored.
Jeff Finkle, executive director of the Council for Urban Economic Development, said it's not unheard of for a company president to give the nod to the place with the best golf courses.
Not surprisingly, every community that's serious about economic development makes quality of life a part of its pitch to prospective industry.
Consider Charlotte, N.C., which is emerging as one of the booming economic city-states of the future. It has lots of practical advantages, among them a large population base, extensive banking resources, flat land, multiple interstate highways, an international airport and road access to the port of Charleston, S.C.
The slick promotional material from the Carolinas Partnership, which markets the Charlotte area, points all of that out. Yet it also is replete with photos of pastoral scenery, museums, churches, sporting events, well-equipped schools and other images designed to suggest that life in south-central North Carolina is good indeed.
The Roanoke Valley, which lacks many of Charlotte's advantages, is no different.
\ In addition to pertinent business data, marketing material from the valley's Economic Development Partnership plays up the "Blue Ridge Mountains' Majesty" - along with the area's golf and tennis facilities, the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, the Harrison Museum of African American Culture and numerous other amenities.
"I can't think of a single community I've visited [professionally] that didn't say it had a fine quality of life," said Moretti, who is a principal with the international economic development consulting firm PHH Fantus. "Everybody has a good quality of life."
Boyle agrees. If anything, he says, the pitch may be approaching the point of diminishing return.
"I think company executives are getting a little tired of these promotional videotapes that show ducks flying over a pond at sunset," he said. "There may not be a duck within 100 miles, but they're in the videotape anyway."
Boyle may be right, but don't look for ducks to fly out of the picture anytime soon. Quality of life is an established part of the economic development pitch, though its value may vary according to circumstances.
In a 1992 survey of local economic development officials by Site Selection magazine, 66 percent said QOL was "very important" in site-selection decisions in their areas and 60 percent said its importance had increased in comparison with five years earlier.
Phil Sparks, acting head of Roanoke's economic development department, said quality of life is always important because the city has to compensate for a shortage of land to offer new or expanding industry.
"We have to work real hard here because of that," Sparks said. "Without our quality of life, I don't know where we'd be."
He said industrial prospects, particularly those who have reached the point of seriously considering a Roanoke location, are interested in downtown vitality, school quality, health care, housing, recreational resources, cultural amenities, the crime rate, the climate and so on.
"It's more than just a business decision," Sparks said.
by CNB