Augusta, as far as economic development goes, is a city without a plan.
But it's working on it.
Industrial recruiters in Richmond, Columbia and Burke counties are in the process of creating a loosely-structured industrial recruitment program to market the region to new business and industry.
Talks began after the private-sector supported Augusta Regional Partner-ship plan was shot down in December.
While the talks go on, officials in other Southeastern cities are moving forward with formal programs that resemble either the rejected Augusta Regional Partnership proposal or the former program run by the Augusta Metro Chamber of Commerce.
The Augusta Regional Partnership was pitched as a regional marketing agency that would allow the business community to help fund economic development, just as it did under the Augusta Metro Chamber's Forward Together initiative.
Opponents, the most vocal being a faction of the Richmond County Development Authority, however, rejected the plan as a "Trojan-horse" attempt by "chamber insiders" to re-create the chamber's industrial recruiting program, which they allege was rife with mismanagement.
Thus, officials are back to the drawing board, and Richmond County is leading the way.
The first of what will be several meetings between the three counties' development authority officials indicates the government bodies plan to market the region themselves.
"What we don't want to do is report to another bureaucracy," Richmond County Development Authority Chair-man Loren Perry said, referring to the chamber's Augusta Regional Partner-ship models.
Talk has focused on how the three development authorities can cooperate regionally without creating a unified organization.
"The dialog has been positive," Mr. Perry said, adding that the authorities have discussed proposals such as creating a Web site allowing industrial prospects to obtain information on all three counties.
But discussions haven't addressed a way for the city's business community to lend its assistance and its money - area corporations ponied up $6.3 million during the 10-year Forward Together chamber program that expired in December. The program would have been renewed under the Augusta Regional Partnership plan, had it been approved.
Unless the three development authorities find a way to engage the private sector, they will be funding economic development solely with taxpayer dollars and whatever revenue they can make on their own.
Outside advice
At some point, economic development officials in other cities say, Augusta will need formal procedures and a well-defined plan. Otherwise, talk of cooperation is just lip service.
"Everything sounds great until a project comes in, then everybody wants it," said Rick Winger, the president of the Savannah Economic Development Author-ity.
While local officials work on their loose affiliation, cities such as Charleston, S.C., Greenville, S.C., and Columbus, Ga., are moving forward with more-structured economic development programs.
With a few notable exceptions, more than a dozen community economic development programs have three things in common:
• A marketing organization that serves as a single-source contact for industrial prospects
• A regional approach to industrial recruiting that does not push any particular city or county over another
• Private-sector involvement in funding and advisory capacities
All three are currently lacking in the Augusta market.
Regional marketing is based on the concept that local economies transcend city, county and even state lines.
A company scouting a location in the Augusta market would have to work through all three county development authorities individually for a comprehensive tour of industrial and commercial properties.
Development authority staff engage in limited cross-county cooperation, such as sharing space at trade show booths, as government employees their livelihood depends on creating jobs within the political subdivision that signs their paycheck.
Industrial recruiters do not face such pressure in markets where governments pool their resources to create an independent marketing agency, because the employees work for the entire region, not a special section of it.
Such structures generally have less infighting.
"If they see you fighting and bickering - life is too short and there are too many other places to go," said Mike Edwards, the president of the Knoxville Area Chamber Partnership, which is part of the regional East Tennessee Economic Devel-opment Agency that markets a 16-county area. "No consultant wants to get involved with a community that's dysfunctional."
Richmond County Develop-ment Director Walter Sprouse said there has never been any discord between himself and his counterparts, Columbia County's Zack Daffin and Burke County's Jerry Long.
He said that if a prospect turned down Richmond County, he would do everything possible to steer it toward Columbia and Burke.
"Myself, Zack and Jerry are professional economic development people," he said.
Still, protocol is a major topic of discussion among local officials trying to draft a new marketing plan.
"What we're talking about now are more or less procedural and ethical questions; what we would do to avoid a bidding war if we have a client come in, how we can work together and not throw stones at each other," Mr. Perry said.
Structure needed
Prospective industries don't care about political boundaries within a market.
Communities form regional organizations because "it's what business is demanding. They don't look at a city or a county, they look at a market area," said David Ginn, the president of the Charleston Regional Development Alliance.
Economic development is driven by industry needs, be it low-cost real estate, a skilled work force or proximity to highways, airports and railroads.
In the 16-county area marketed by the Charlotte Regional Partnership in Charlotte, N.C., recruiters show a client the entire region and then step back.
"We are here to give them facts about what's available and let them decide where to locate," said Kenny McDonald, the partnership's vice president of economic development.
The larger a region, the more attractive it might be to a prospective company because it has more locations to offer.
"Ultimately, what we end up with is one particular property or site in the 10-county region that has what they're looking for," said Jody Bryson, the head of the Upstate Alliance, which recruits industry for a 10-county area surrounding Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C. The rejected Augusta Regional Partnership plan was based on the Upstate Alliance model.
Going it alone
While most communities take a regional approach to lure business and industry, some choose to market their respective political subdivisions exclusively.
Officials in the Georgia cities of Macon, Athens, Albany and Savannah say they have done fine pitching their counties alone.
The standout is Savannah.
"They're knocking the socks off everyone else," said Pat Topping, the executive director of the Macon Economic Development Commission, whose sole focus is marketing Bibb County, in which Macon is located.
The Savannah Economic Development Authority markets only the part of Savannah that falls within Chatham County. The authority competes head-to-head with neighboring counties such as Liberty, Bryan and Effingham.
The authority doesn't pool resources with those counties, mainly because it doesn't have to - Chatham is home to the port of Savannah, one of the nation's largest cargo-container terminals.
Chatham County entices companies with its proximity to the ports. Neighboring counties pitch cheap real estate because the farther from the port, the more affordable land becomes. Mr. Winger doesn't consider companies that locate in an adjacent county a total loss.
"We don't mind sharing that prospect if we know we don't have a chance at it," Mr. Winger said.
Still, his organization has no intention of marketing Savannah as a region.
"Neither our mission is met, nor is our business model helped, by putting anybody in a county other than our own," he said.
Private-sector help
Savannah's economic development agency operates on revenues from its industrial parks and bond issues, so it solicits no money from the private sector. However, many other community economic development programs do. The money keeps organizations focused on the region instead of political boundaries that are largely invisible to companies.
"It insulates us to political winds of change that can sweep through from time to time," the Upstate Alliance's Mr. Bryson said.
His organization, for example, receives about $825,000, or 60 percent, of its $1.25 million budget from private donors. In Jacksonville, Fla., the economic development arm of the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce promotes a six-county area.
It has been funded during the past five years by a $15 million campaign, 70 percent of which came from the private sector, chamber spokeswoman Cathy Chambers said.
The Richmond County Devel-opment Authority's $324,000 operating budget, which includes salaries, is mostly funded by administrative fees from the bonds it issues. Augusta commissioners kicked in $75,000, down from the $100,000 it allocated last year.
Private-sector funds are absent from the authority's 2005 budget. Last year, the now-expired Forward Together campaign contributed about $73,000.
Mr. Sprouse said the authority has become much smarter about how it spends money. During the past two years it has nearly eliminated advertising expenses to attend more trade shows and make more face-to-face visits with prospects and site-selection consultants.
He said the strategy is working, adding that prospects jumped from 12 to 69 during the past two years. About 25 of those are "active" prospects, he said.
"If you're comparing us to other organizations, I think you'll notice two things very clearly: We don't have the staff and we don't have the budget that a lot of organizations have. But ask them what kind of projects they worked on last year.
"On a per-project cost, I think you would see our cost of obtaining prospects is low."
"We're doing things the right way," he said.
Gossary of terms
Economic development: The catch-all phrase for growing an economy by urging existing businesses to expand and attracting new ones through regional marketing and incentives.
Regional marketing: An industrial recruitment plan that highlights the physical and demographic characteristics of a regional economy, rather than focusing on an individual municipality or county.
Incentives: Tools used by governments, usually through development authorities, to make their communities more attractive to new business and industry; includes tax abatements, low-cost financing, worker-training assistance and free or below-market real estate.
Chamber of commerce: An organization, usually private and nonprofit, that represents a geographic region's business community; often hired by local governments to operate a formal regional marketing program.
Development authority: A statutory body of political appointees to create incentives for businesses to expand or locate in a specific geographic region; sometimes operates a marketing program, but usually works with agencies that market its political boundaries in the context of a regional economy.
Prospect: Term economic developers use to describe a business that has shown an interest in their community.
The following are the subtle differences in the industrial recruiting programs used by 15 Southeastern communities.
Albany, Ga.
Columbus, Ga.
Savannah, Ga.
Jacksonville, Fla.
Macon, Ga.
Atlanta
Huntsville, Ala.
Knoxville, Tenn.
Athens, Ga.
Chattanooga, Tenn.
Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C.
Charlotte, N.C.
Columbia, S.C.
Charleston, S.C.
Aiken
*Denotes staff dedicated to economic development only.
The Augusta Chronicle ©2012 Morris Communications, LLC. All Rights Reserved.