Economic Development
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
Center City District president and CEO Paul R. Levy would like the city to set a goal of adding 50,000 to 100,000 jobs to its employment base by 2023.
The head of the special services district made the comment in presenting the organization's latest "State of Center City" report, which compares the downtown area of Philadelphia to the suburbs and other cities on a variety of measures.
Here is a link to the full report.
"If you can turn around 50 years of population decline, you can turn around 50 years of employment decline," Levy said. "We need to set this goal."
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
I am no fan of economic-impact studies because, while written by third-party economists, they are usually paid for by organizations who want to tout the good they are doing in a community.
Still, I must admit to being intrigued by the latest impact study on the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center, a nonprofit research group that has become home to many for-profit life-sciences start-ups.
Doylestown won’t make many lists of biotech hotbeds. But it’s where the center was started in 2006 in a shuttered manufacturing complex. Today, the parking lot bustles at rush hour with industry and academic scientists, students and entrepreneurs, according to Timothy Block, the microbiologist who has overseen the center’s growth.
The three buildings on Old Easton Road contain 40 small life-sciences companies, as well as the “cause-driven” Hepatitis B Foundation, begun by Block and his wife, Joan, and another couple in 1991 to find a cure for the liver infection, and the Institute for Hepatitis & Virus Research, started in 2003 as the foundation’s research arm.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
The end of the employment cliff for Pennsylvania is finally in sight, according to the economists at IHS Global Insight.
On Monday, the Lexington, Mass., firm issued its latest forecast of when states will return to “peak employment” levels. Peak employment refers to the level of employment attained by a state before a recession wreaks its job-killing havoc.
Pennsylvania is now expected to surpass its peak employment level next year during the first quarter, IHS Global Insight says. New Jersey has a bit longer to wait -- fourth quarter 2015. Delaware, meanwhile, remains two years away from a full recovery.
Six lucky states have already surpassed previous peak levels: North Dakota, Alaska, Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and New York. And much as everyone in this region might wish for a job market that’s hopping in 2013 rather than a year or two years from now, it could be worse: Nevada, Michigan, and Rhode Island are expected to be the last to recover, in 2018 or later.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
Mayor Nutter makes his annual address to the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown Tuesday about 1 p.m.
It has tended to be a friendly forum for this mayor, who often encourages and sometimes cajoles the business community into doing more to hire, expand, offer internships, and mentor city residents.
Generally, the applause comes easily when Nutter describes his agenda, because the mayor has tended to champion a lot of things (lower wages and business taxes, property reassessment) that the business community has sought.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
One factoid that didn't make it into my column in Wednesday's newspaper on state subsidies to corporations, which focused on Delaware's $11.1 million incentive package to retain Incyte Corp., was the cost per job.
First, Delaware officials calculated the amount of state personal income tax the state would receive from a workforce of 560 from now until the end of 2018. That figure of $10,070,505 is the amount of the grant that Incyte received in exchange for creating 266 jobs.
To calculate what that works out per job, Delaware divided that dollar amount by 560 jobs, producing $17,983 per job. Why not the 266 jobs created, which would be $37,859? Because the deal calls for Incyte to have 560 employees in Delaware as of Dec. 31, 2018. If it does not, then there is a clawback provision that requires to company to pay back the state for every job under that level. That would be $17,983 per job.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
The Corbett administration has awarded $844,000 in incentives to help a Canadian company that makes catalytic converters for diesel vehicles relocate to Montgomeryville.
Environmental Solutions Worldwide Inc. will move its headquarters from Concord, Ontario, to a 40,220-square-foot building that its U.S. research and development and Air Testing Services units have been using since 2005. Last October, the company relocated all of its manufacturing operations from Canada to the Montgomeryville facility.
The Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development provided a $150,000 Opportunity Grant, a $500,000 low-interest loan from the Machinery and Equipment Loan Fund, and $194,000 in job-creation tax credits. In addition, the state said the company would be eligible to apply for R&D tax credits.
In return, Environmental Solutions Worldwide said it intended to create at least 97 jobs within three years and retain 11 existing jobs. According to its most recent annual report, the company had 38 employees, down from 53 the prior year.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
Anyone who has spent some time in the Philadelphia area knows that it has a big footprint in brainy activities that require spending on research and development.
But until now, it's been a little difficult to put an overall figure of just how much is spent on R&D in the region.
Select Greater Philadelphia estimates the amount at $10.5 billion, or 2.9 percent of Philadelphia's gross regional product.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
First, a corporate headquarters, then a small manufacturing operation.
That's what industrial equipment maker Gardner Denver Inc. has brought to Pennsylvania since late 2010. Gov. Corbett's office announced Monday that the company would add an "aftermarket service center" in Blair County in western Pennsylvania.
Gardner Denver, which makes compressors and pumps used in the oil and gas drilling business, is joining the rush of companies active in the Marcellus Shale region. The new 70,000-square-foot operation will manufacture fluid ends used in pressure pumps and provides service to its drilling customers in the shale area.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
Ask me how thrilled I am that we’ll soon have a jobs commission in Philadelphia to come up with ways to put people to work.
Not that we don’t need to reverse the decades-long decline in employment in the city. It’s just that this is the wrong way to go about it.
In case you missed it amid all the excitement over the Pennsylvania primary election, voters in the city on May 17 approved a ballot question establishing a 17-member jobs commission.
The only good thing is this commission could have a brief existence given that its report is due for City Council approval no later than Jan. 31.
Mike Armstrong, Inquirer Columnist
April showers seem to be bringing lots of opinions about the state of Philadelphia.
Mayor Nutter presented his “State of the City” address to a business audience at the Union League of Philadelphia last week. A few days before, the Pew Charitable Trust’s Philadelphia Research Initiative released its sobering report on how the city is performing, or more precisely underperforming, vs. other cities.
On Tuesday, it was the Center City District’s turn to spin the numbers with its annual glossy publication that certainly sells its subject well.
While the 2011 State of Center City Philadelphia doesn’t delve into the significant poverty and education challenges raised by the Pew report, I’ll credit Center City District president and chief executive officer Paul R. Levy for pointing out a couple of elephants that may not be in the room, but are wandering around the neighborhood.
Mike Armstrong blogs about Philadelphia corporations and business-related topics. Contact him at 215-854-2980.
Reach Mike at marmstrong@phillynews.com.
