Thursday, October 31, 2019

MoCo misses out on Mitsubishi HQ, relocation expert cites importance of airport access

Montgomery County hasn't attracted a single major corporate headquarters in over twenty years, and Mitsubishi North America won't break that humiliating streak of failure. The Japanese industrial giant's U.S. headquarters has been in sunny California since 1988. After a nationwide search, they've chosen Franklin, Tennessee.

"I’m proud Mitsubishi Motors will call Franklin its U.S. home, and bring 200 high-quality jobs to Middle Tennessee," Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said in a press release announcing the victory. The press release notes that corporate headquarters jobs have grown by 37% in Tennessee since 2013. "Mitsubishi Motors’ decision to relocate its U.S. headquarters from California to Franklin underscores Tennessee’s growing profile as a hub for U.S. and international companies," Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development Chair Bob Rolfe said. "Tennessee will continue to actively recruit quality headquarters jobs from higher-cost coastal states, and we are honored Mitsubishi will make this significant investment in Williamson County.”

This is just the latest major corporate HQ contest the Montgomery County Council and economic development officials have either lost, or simply dozed through without even making a bid. One ongoing disadvantage Montgomery has, besides its national reputation as a business-unfriendly jurisdiction with high taxes, is its lack of direct access to Dulles International Airport.

We could have had direct access by now, had our elected officials not canceled the long-planned Potomac River crossing to the Dulles area. John Boyd of corporate relocation firm The Boyd Company reaffirmed the importance of such access in recent comments about Sherwin Williams dissatisfaction with their current Cleveland HQ location, that has spurred them to begin a relocation search.

Boyd's analysis was reported by Cleveland's Fox 8 as follows:

He said air transit is a key factor in site selection. As Cleveland vies to keep the company that employs more than 33,000 people worldwide, Boyd said the region's lack of non-stop flights to markets around the globe is its biggest hurdle.

Cleveland Hopkins International Airport was ranked second-worst among 16 similar-sized airports in the J.D. Power 2019 North America Airport Satisfaction Study. The airport has commissioned a firm to create a new master plan for upgrades.

"Every time there's a major trophy headquarters project, you always think about the usual suspects: Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston. Cities with major gateway airports," Boyd said.

Dulles is unmatched in our region for the frequency of flights and variety of international business destinations. It would be so simple to eliminate this major obstacle to economic growth by merely greenlighting the new bridge to Dulles. The Council's stubborn refusal to do so speaks volumes about their radical, fringe ideology, and total lack of competence.

8 comments:

  1. How is Tennessee getting 200 jobs for a regional hq a "major corporate headquarters" yet Children's National Health System moving their national HQ to Silver Spring doesn't count? Children's new HQ is 4x the size and 4x the number of employees as this random Tennessee relocation. If either meets a definition of "major," it's undeniably Children's.

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    1. There's no comparison between Mitsubishi and Children's in scope and in international name recognition.

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    2. Another day, another deleted comment. MORIBUND

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    3. Yeah, but the number of jobs is quite different. Also, look at the $5 million they are investing in the children's rehab center: https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2019/10/24/here-s-what-children-s-national-is-bringing-to-the.html#g/462577/1

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    4. I feel like you don't understand the definition of "major corporate headquarters," Robert.

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    5. 1:56: Oh, but I do, and so does Northern Virginia: Northrop, Volkswagen, Hilton Hotels, Intelsat, Nestle, CEB, Lidl, Gerber, Amazon HQ 2, etc.

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  2. Somehow I don't think that someone who has never had a job himself, is the best person to judge what kind of jobs are best.

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    1. 8:07: So that explains why you have so much time to troll. Get a job!

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