While the study does reflect the success Montgomery County has had in the biotech sector, it shows several of the weaknesses we need to address in future economic development efforts. According to the report, Northern Virginia's tech leasing dominance was driven by high-tech and aerospace firms. Biotech is an important but small niche by comparison, and we can't compete on that alone.
In fact, the top 2014 lease in Northern Virginia, according to the report, was Northrop Grumman, who chose Virginia over Montgomery County in a humiliating defeat for politicians on this side of the river in 2010. Northrop occupies a full 309,757 SF at its Fairfax County space. The two next-largest tech tenants in Northern Virginia? Yep, both aerospace/defense firms - Argon ST and Boeing.
Now check out Montgomery County - the report cites 0% leasing by aerospace and defense firms in 2014. Zero! The county's largest tech lease in 2014? JDSU, a technology services firm in Germantown, with 45,726 SF, paltry in comparison to Northrop's.
The report also cites the proximity of Northern Virginia's "strong concentration of highly educated young knowledge workers" to that area's tech, defense and aerospace firms, a workforce Montgomery County has struggled to attract. Recent efforts to boost MoCo's nightlife have fizzled, leaving downtown Bethesda with less nightlife than it had just a few years ago. The County Council's efforts to make Uber and Lyft fares more expensive, ban e-cigarettes where traditional cigarettes are banned, and approval of the closure of Dave and Buster's are unlikely to increase the county's appeal to millennials.
How can Montgomery County revive its floundering economy? Better economic development incentives, a more business-friendly climate, a greater appeal to young professionals, and investments in highway infrastructure. The county had $4 million to spend, and put it toward securing a Costco store in Wheaton. By contrast, Arlington County paid the same amount to bring the Corporate Executive Board to a new Rosslyn office tower. CEB brought a couple thousand jobs, plus plans to add 800 new ones that average $100,000 in salary. Not exactly Costco wages, and only Montgomery County would try to use a Costco store as an economic development trophy.
What brings millennials to Northern Virginia and DC? Two big factors - high-wage jobs and (in only relative terms) affordable housing. Not luxury apartments. While nightlife is important, there's a reason new graduates across America move to Washington, DC rather than Las Vegas. Montgomery County hasn't added a single major corporate headquarters in over a decade, meaning it hasn't added any significant number of non-government high-wage jobs in more than 10 years. It also is demolishing affordable apartments in desirable areas like Bethesda, including The Hampden and several buildings on Battery Lane. Talk of redeveloping the Bradley Boulevard corridor suggests lower-cost housing currently rented by millennials there could vanish, as well.
Finally, there's no getting around (pun intended) Montgomery County's traffic gridlock, and lack of Dulles Airport access. Northern Virginia's job centers like Tysons Corner have far superior access to interstate highways and airports. The big international firms also demand direct access to Dulles Airport, and Montgomery County has failed to plan for or build the new Potomac River bridge that could provide such access. As such, firms continue to choose Northern Virginia. In fact, one perk in Virginia's incentive package for Northrop was a discount lease for its corporate jet at a Dulles Airport hangar. Not a Bus Rapid Transit pass.
Oops.
67 comments:
So move to Virginia already.
Looks like "Snowshovelgate" fizzled just as "Beerghazi" did.
So it's time for an extended, incoherent rant from Dyer.
We are moving to Fairfax. The incentives for Maryland companies to relocae are amazing. Everyday firms move. Fairfax has 19 million vacant class a office space which is very inexpensive. You can be on very nice space in tysons for 30 a square foot. Old beat up space with limited parking in Bethesda is 45 psf. Fairfax also has things like the Tower Club, Equinix data centers, and a very good economic development authority. There is no reason at all to stay in Moco as a business. It is a great place to live but not to have a business
Why so much "vacant, inexpensive" office space? Sounds like a glut to me.
BWI is the top local airport for international traffic. Dulles continues to struggle.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/dulles-international-airport-struggles-to-find-its-footing/2014/11/27/2d7b9d80-66c9-11e4-836c-83bc4f26eb67_story.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dr-gridlock/wp/2014/12/01/dulles-airports-troubles-in-one-handy-graphic/
6:09: They can't fizzle, because the Post and Gazette have yet to investigate either scandal. So it's time for more hard news analysis from "Dyer."
6:18: I think your last sentence is the perfect summation of MoCo's problem - we're becoming the ultimate bedroom community, and the great jobs are all landing outside of the County.
6:54: You're confusing overall popularity with the specific clientele I'm talking about, which is the international business traveler. Dulles simply has more flight options to the important business destinations worldwide than BWI. It's the only airport that can handle the largest international jets, as well. You have to look at it from the business standpoint, rather than the Southwest-to-Spring-Break! standpoint.
5:58: You're making no sense. It's time to get to work fixing Montgomery County's problems, not give up and run away. Leave the carpetbagging to Hans Riemer.
"You have to look at it from the business standpoint, rather than the Southwest-to-Spring-Break! standpoint."
There you go being an elitist again.
Also "Southwest-to-Spring-Break" isn't really relevant to a discussion of international flights. BWI has more international flights as well as more domestic flights.
This article makes MoCo sound like Detroit. Life in MoCo sure is tough.
If NoVa is really the ultimate business/millennial/transportation utopia claims it is then...
- Why is Dulles struggling to compete with National and BWI (the latter now the region's busiest airport for half a decade)?
- Why is the Class A vacancy rate in Fairfax Co (16.1%) higher than MoCo (14.1%)?
- Why is the Q4 vacancy rate for Tysons Corner 16.1% and the Bethesda/Chevy Chase vacancy rate 10.4%?
- Why are Rosslyn and Crystal City approaching 30% vacancy rates?
- Why does the region's tallest building in Arlington have 0% of it's space leased nearly 3 years after delivery?
- Why does the MoCo population grow by 15,000 every year?
- Why do these imaginary millenials fill the thousands of new apartment units being built in Silver Spring and Bethesda?
- Why is the percentage growth in millenials 2010-2012 in MoCo higher than Arlington, Fairfax, and Prince George's ?
- Why is Montgomery County's affordable housing program a national model?
- Why did Arlington county lose 11,000 affordable housing units over 3 years?
Kind of messes up the Shangri-La vision for south of the river...
Anyone interested in local business news based on reality and not puff piece "reporting" from a NoVa cheerleader, please read reputable outlets like the Washington Business Journal.
It's also really brazen for someone writing a NoVa business ad to criticize "traffic gridlock" in Montgomery County when every interstate in NoVa is a parking lot during the daylight.
Obviously Montgomery County isn't perfect, and it is sorely lagging behind other jurisdictions in attracting large private employers. However, any reasonable person can clearly see that it isn't the nightmare the author portrays it to be.
Perhaps Dyer could ask the question, "why don't residents of Virginia want to build a new Potomac River bridge to help their struggling airport?"
6:18 AM wrote:
"You can be on very nice space in tysons for 30 a square foot. Old beat up space with limited parking in Bethesda is 45 psf."
LOL, I guess that means people prefer renting office space in Bethesda, over Tysons.
"This article makes MoCo sound like Detroit."
Well, if you live in Westbard, it just might seem that way.
Ok Robert, so what would be your plan, point for point, to rescue Montgomery County, citing sources to back up your recommendations?
@ 10:51 AM - Excellent points.
But do you really think Dyer is going to argue your points? He'll likely ignore you're entire comment and reply some other comment and talk about no fortune 500 company coming to MoCo and our jobs consisting of Costco employees and baristas. All the same smoke he always blows.
Haha that's exactly what I was thinking.
Besides, woodmont triangle crap offices are mid $20s.
Yeah westbard is like an industrial wasteland. No wonder that townhouse development fought so hard for their own entrance/bridge.
"Now check out Montgomery County - the report cites 0% leasing by aerospace and defense firms in 2014. "
It would appear that Lockheed Martin, the largest aerospace and defense company in the world, which has its global headquarters in Montgomery County, owns its office space.
10:10: BWI doesn't have the same selection and frequency of flights to important business destinations in regions like the Middle East.
10:51: You don't consider the CBRE to be a credible source?
These are some standard MoCo Machine talking points. Like the previous commenter, you are mistaking overall numbers for BWI as somehow meaning it is the better choice for international business travelers. If you try to book a flight to a business destination more exotic than Europe, you will quickly find that Dulles is the superior choice.
There are no (unsubsidized) masses of millennials moving into luxury apartments in Bethesda, nor is there a millennial professional work force in Montgomery County equal to that of Northern Virginia.
No one is mentioning Detroit but you. But now that you brought it up - Did you know Bethesda just fell behind Detroit in the number of years since a corporation built a headquarters building downtown? Another humiliating defeat for the MoCo Machine. Fell behind Detroit in corporate HQ construction, and you're taking a victory lap? So much for "reality."
11:02: Virginia has been trying to build the bridge for decades, but MoCo and Annapolis have refused to pick up the phone. The main opposition in Virginia are Astroturf organizations bankrolled by urban developers who will lose money if the bridge is built.
11:04: And this great demand you cite for Bethesda is why neither new Class A office building here could attract a major corporate anchor tenant?
11:15: Is that why not a single resident stood up and asked for the urbanization of suburban Westbard you apparently endorse? Oops.
11:52: I know it's hard to accept the truth, but with no major high-wage corporation moving here, MoCo job growth has been overwhelmingly in the barista/jeans-folding sectors.
11:42: I gave my recommendations at the end of the piece. Those recommendations are working in other cities, whereas what we are doing now is definitively not working.
I work for a privately owned tech startup in Tysons. The entire exec team lives in MD but commutes across the bridge everyday. The reasons are simple. 1) The workforce lives in Arlington or Reston/Herndon. 2) Taxes are much lower. 3) Tech infrastructure is far superior including closer proximity to our data centers out in Ashburn.
What Maryland and MoCo seem to ignore is that by not building a new infrastructure like bridges or making it easier to get from Arlington to Rockville via public transport Maryland will never attract companies big and small.
5:30pm: what you say rings true. The biggest traffic jam every rush hour is from the Legion bridge to 270.
How much longer can we turn a blind eye to that mess without coming up with viable solutions?
"The main opposition in Virginia are Astroturf organizations bankrolled by urban developers who will lose money if the bridge is built."
Ha ha, that's funny, Robert.
2:48: "We don't need the Lockheed headquarters." Councilmember Nancy Floreen, 2010
7:11: It would be if it weren't killing the county economy. See the intelligent commenter's experience from the real world at 5:30 above to understand why.
7:22 PM - Lame diversion. Who are these "astroturf organizations bankrolled by urban developers"?
BWI is just a bunch of domestic flights on Southwest. The only flights to Europe are the daily to London on BA, and the Condor (charter) to Frankfurt.
Dulles is the main hub of the area for international flights. For domestic BUSINESS travelers, Reagan is preferred.
I believe it's MoCo opposing another bridge crossing. VA has already built their part that would eventually connect. It's route 28 off the Toll Road. It was built to interstate specs for a reason.
Great flashback to when the MoCo council was antagonizing Lockheed a few years back. Bad idea to piss off one of your top employers.
Ha. I expected this type of response, just as another commenter predicted. Instead of having a logical and thoughtful counter argument, let's just ignore the questions and respond with absurdities like "MoCo Machine," "Council stooge," etc.
"Like the previous commenter, you are mistaking overall numbers for BWI as somehow meaning it is the better choice for international business travelers. If you try to book a flight to a business destination more exotic than Europe, you will quickly find that Dulles is the superior choice."
Trust me, I know quite a bit about commercial aviation and know every international destination served by all 3 airports. I never said that IAD and DCA were better business traveller airports. I merely stated that while business is booming at DCA and BWI, it's on the decline at IAD. This is a fact (from the FAA, it ).
Facts might seem strange to you because all of your "investigative reports" are devoid of them. I don't base my statements solely on personal opinion, bias, anecdotes, and invective.
"There are no (unsubsidized) masses of millennials moving into luxury apartments in Bethesda, nor is there a millennial professional work force in Montgomery County equal to that of Northern Virginia."
Sigh. More blatantly incorrect opinion, and even more incorrect quoting.
Please reread my comment. It clearly states: "...percentage growth in millenials 2010-2012 in MoCo higher than Arlington, Fairfax, and Prince George's ?"
"No one is mentioning Detroit but you. But now that you brought it up - Did you know Bethesda just fell behind Detroit in the number of years since a corporation built a headquarters building downtown? Another humiliating defeat for the MoCo Machine. Fell behind Detroit in corporate HQ construction, and you're taking a victory lap? So much for "reality.""
So I was right. You do think Detroit is be superior to MoCo economically. Wow. Thanks for denying then affirming.
"BWI is just a bunch of domestic flights on Southwest. The only flights to Europe are the daily to London on BA, and the Condor (charter) to Frankfurt."
Nope. BWI has a larger volume of international flights than Dulles.
As well as a larger volume of domestic flights.
Dyer, I honestly don't understand how you don't get this: no one doubts that NoVA has more office space (and way, way more vacant office space) than MoCo. NoVa is a much more populous area with many more urbanized areas. You're comparing apples and watermelons and you can't even recognize that unbelievably obvious fact.
You rant and rant about MoCo looking to add small pockets of density to the Pike, Westbard, etc. and yet you look with dick envy over at NoVA and its gazillion half-empty office parks. I don't get it. The fact you don't see how braindead you sound and how inherently contradictory your half-baked opinions are is truly mind-boggling.
7:31: Environmental and smart growth groups who are both funded by developers and foundations bankrolled by development interests.
8:48: You're claiming there are more, and more frequent, flights to business destinations in the Middle East and Asia out of BWI than Dulles? Baloney.
This whole article was based on stats right from the CBRE report! All of my articles are backed up with stats and factual information. You deny that no major corporation has moved here in over a decade? You deny that NoVa whipped MoCo in tech leasing last year?
You said "imaginary millennials" were filling the luxury apartments of Bethesda. You said it, and I called you on it. Complete hogwash.
What is the source for your stat of more millennials moving to MoCo in 2010-2012? I've never heard this stat before. The last real study showed we were behind those jurisdictions.
Never said Detroit was better, just that they more recently had a corporation build a headquarters building than downtown Bethesda. It's an embarrassing stat, like so many others one can point to that indicate the economic stagnation of Montgomery County.
8:53: BS. BWI does not have equal number or frequency of flights to the Middle East and Asia, increasingly important business destinations, as Dulles. Unless you're like Hans Riemer, and basing your economic development plan on 9-person companies and farmers markets.
9:35: You call more than 3000 people a "small pocket of density" in the two-block area of Westbard? I'm afraid to ask what number would qualify as a large pocket.
Turn off the smokescreen. This study was about square footage LEASED, not total existing SF. And they whipped MoCo again.
Your MoCo Machine guys lost again. Get over it.
Ok, so Robert, you said "I gave my recommendations at the end of the piece. Those recommendations are working in other cities, whereas what we are doing now is definitively not working."
Do not receive this as a personal challenge on your character or beliefs, but an attempt to seek better understanding of your perspectives so that we may all have a constructive conversation versus some of the inane back and forth from all parties involved as it stands now.
1) "Better economic development incentives"
Can you provide some details for the incentives you would propose?
1b) "The county had $4 million to spend, and put it toward securing a Costco store in Wheaton. By contrast, Arlington County paid the same amount to bring the Corporate Executive Board to a new Rosslyn office tower. CEB brought a couple thousand jobs, plus plans to add 800 new ones that average $100,000 in salary."
So it sounds like what you are saying is not that Montgomery County isn't providing incentives (they did provide incentives to Costco in your example), but rather perhaps the money could either go to better targets or achieve better results? In your example, did Montgomery County try to bring CEB with the same money? And if not, do you know why?
2) "a more business-friendly climate"
Can you explain your opinion on what specifics Montgomery County is or is not doing that could make it more business-friendly? Specifics versus generalizations.
3) "a greater appeal to young professionals"
Can you provide some examples of what you feel would appeal to young professionals, and seeing as you do not fit this demographic it would be nice to have some cited sources.
4) "investments in highway infrastructure" -
What types of highway infrastructure improvements are you proposing, and where will they go, and how will they be paid for, and what's the utilization, etc.? Did Montgomery County not invest any in highway infrastructure? I ask this not as a challenge, but as a question having just seen the ICC go up with much challenge, cost, and low utilization.
5) "What brings millennials to Northern Virginia and DC? Two big factors - high-wage jobs and (in only relative terms) affordable housing. Not luxury apartments."
What research/data/info are you using to qualify your statement?
Luxury apartments aparently are working as a draw for millenials though, since as you have stated rents are not going down, and apartments are being filled, which implies the free market is working - the supply of luxury apartments is being met by the demand of young millenials blowing their income on high priced housing.
6) "Montgomery County hasn't added a single major corporate headquarters in over a decade, meaning it hasn't added any significant number of non-government high-wage jobs in more than 10 years."
So what detailed proposal do you recommend for Montgomery County to do this? And as has been noted before, major corporations is a zero-sum game, so gains in Montgomery County mean losses for somewhere else, meaning no overall difference as a nation - but if we're only caring about Montgomery County, sure, so be it.
7) " It also is demolishing affordable apartments in desirable areas like Bethesda, including The Hampden and several buildings on Battery Lane."
Would you agree that developers are doing the demolishing of affordable apartments based on their market analysis? Is your argument that the County permitting office is allowing them too much over the standard building method without receiving enough in return? That I could understand, but it's not the County demolishing anything.
8) "Talk of redeveloping the Bradley Boulevard corridor suggests lower-cost housing currently rented by millennials there could vanish, as well."
So with all this talk about lower-cost housing disappearing, what is your suggestion to add more low-cost housing? How do you incentivize developers to build lower-cost housing on their own private land?
9) "Finally, there's no getting around (pun intended) Montgomery County's traffic gridlock, and lack of Dulles Airport access. Northern Virginia's job centers like Tysons Corner have far superior access to interstate highways and airports. The big international firms also demand direct access to Dulles Airport, and Montgomery County has failed to plan for or build the new Potomac River bridge that could provide such access."
Is there any data to support your statement that Montgomery County traffic is worse than Northern Virginia traffic?
What's your solution to Dulles Airport access? It's hardly Montgomery County's fault that the airport is in Northern Virginia. If that's what "big international firms" are demanding, what do you suggest Montgomery County do to solve this problem?
If your suggestion is to build a bridge and you're saying Montgomery County "has failed to plan for or build the new Potomac River bridge that could provide such access" - what's your plan for doing so? Costs? Logistics? Land? Etc.? And what's your evaluation of ROI? Impact on everything involved?
1) "In fact, one perk in Virginia's incentive package for Northrop was a discount lease for its corporate jet at a Dulles Airport hangar. Not a Bus Rapid Transit pass."
I'm not entirely on board with BRT either, but are you directly suggesting with this statement that instead of spending time and effort and money on BRT that Maryland (since you point out Virginia, versus county level Montgomery County which you had been talking about until this point) provide an incentive package involving discount leases for corporate jets at the Dulles airport hanger? If not, what is your suggestion here versus a generalized connection between the VA hangar incentive and BRT?
Thanks Robert - if you can provide constructive discussion here we'll happily engage in trying to reach mutual cordial understanding (if not agreement, which is what we all have a right to).
Fact-checking Larry Hogan's claim that "there used to be 14 Fortune 500 companies in Maryland, now there are only three."
"'We had 14 Fortune 500 companies headquartered in Maryland, and now we have only three. In seven years they've almost all decided to leave. Only a handful of them are hanging on and they're probably thinking about leaving,' he said on the Tom Marr radio show September 13, 2013.
"On other occasions, he has put the starting number at 13.
"'Ten of the state's 13 Fortune 500 companies have already left our state to escape the O'Malley-Brown Administration's 40 straight tax hikes, job-killing regulations and a general anti-employer attitude,' Hogan stated in reply to a question on The Baltimore Sun's Election Center.
"A check of the Fortune 500 and 1000 lists, compiled each year by Fortune magazine based on gross revenue, shows that Hogan's assertion is incorrect.
"There were only five Maryland companies on the Fortune 500 list in 2006, the last year of the Republican administration of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. Eight years later there are four. The only way to get close to 13 as the starting number is to use the Fortune 1000 list. Maryland had 12 companies on that list in 2006 – the same number as in 2014.
"There were seven Fortune 500 firms in Maryland in 2002, the year before Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich took office, and five in 2006, his last year."
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/sun-investigates/bs-md-fortune-500-20141006-story.html
6:51: I think the Sun needs to hire a new fact checker. Hogan was accurate when he said there were only 3 left in 2013. Discovery, already in Maryland, became the 4th in 2014, when it was added to the Fortune 500. Maryland also lost over 40% of its industrial jobs during O'Malley's two terms.
I love how you completely ignore the fact that Hogan claimed that there were 14 Fortune 500 companies at the start of O'Malley's term.
As you note, Montgomery County actually gained a Fortune 500 company, through growth, rather than poaching.
Don't you find this to be a positive development?
Dyer @ 11:15 PM - you understand that you didn't answer me at all, right? You never answer any of the facts people bring up. Just admit you're wrong instead of replying with unrelated crap. And stop calling everyone "MoCo Machine" - that doesn't even mean anything.
@ 10:59 PM - Yet you can't even name a single one of them.
Robert, if you can help answer some of the questions I posted above it would go a long way in showing practically and pragmatic discussion with rational thinking. Thanks.
Robert doesn't seem to want to play nice.
He's not interested in a discussion that works towards a consensus. He's only interested in "whuppin'" and claiming afterward that "you peed in your pants".
12:07: Piedmont Environmental Council and Coalition for Smarter Growth are two.
He started ignoring my calm discourse on his other post too.
http://robertdyer.blogspot.com/2015/01/safe-sidewalks-in-montgomery-county-not.html?m=1#comment-form
LOL, this doesn't exactly sound like a group "funded by developers and foundations bankrolled by development interests".
http://www.pecva.org/
7:48: If so, where is their donor list?
"[O]ne perk in Virginia's incentive package for Northrop was a discount lease for its corporate jet at a Dulles Airport hangar."
Dyer thinks that giveaways to the top 1% are a good thing.
1:20: So you prefer Northrop taking its headquarters and high-wage jobs to Virginia rather than MoCo? Those jobs are a lot better than the minimum wage ones your favorite councilmembers have generated over the last decade.
But we know Hans Riemer likes giveaways to the 1% - they are the majority of his campaign donors! Including Mitt Romney's Bain Capital and Mitch Rales, 2 pioneers in outsourcing American jobs to China. Bravo.
So this will just all come out as more reason people don't vote for him anytime he runs? He avoids the issues and doesn't engage in civil conversation.
So robbery is still active in these comments but avoiding my non biased, straight forward questions... Any clarification on why?
Flynn, did auto-correct have a little fun with the second word of your comment? ;)
Yeah, meant Robert. But really, I wonder why he isn't responding.
Are folks seriously saying they are against government offering companies incentives to move or stay here?
These "perks" are how City of Rockville got Choice Hotels to stay in the county when Choice was looking at Virginia. The City and MoCo "perks" totaled up in the millions of dollars. But, they said it was worth it to get a big company in their town center.
Let's have a serious discussion here.
I've been trying to but Robert is ignoring my questions. 10 or so I believe.
I appreciate you service..
Virginia hypnosis Bruxism
Interesting article! For those looking to move to the Northern Virginia, it is a great place for families and young professionals. In addition to being well centralized, there are tons of activities all year round.
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