Taxes in Columbia/Richland County and economic development (Charleston, North Charleston: organic, vs.)

[LexingtonDad]

Originally Posted by Akhenaton06

So are there other reasons besides tax burdens that the larger economic development projects in SC don't seem to go to the Midlands, i.e. lack of certain established industrial clusters, lack of political clout, lack of very large tracts of available land, etc.?

Don't look now but Amazon.com is about to locate a distribution center in Lexington county and with it about 1200 jobs. The announcement should come next week.

[Akhenaton06]

Originally Posted by LexingtonDad

Don't look now but Amazon.com is about to locate a distribution center in Lexington county and with it about 1200 jobs. The announcement should come next week.

I saw that. I think this might go to my point about available land for development, as it seems that they will be the first tenant to locate in an industrial park that's only about 3 years old or so. I also remember reading elsewhere some time ago that the lack of land for industrial development is something that could potentially hinder economic development in the Columbia area.

[gsupstate]

Originally Posted by LexingtonDad

Don't look now but Amazon.com is about to locate a distribution center in Lexington county and with it about 1200 jobs. The announcement should come next week.

This is great news for Lexington County. Would be even better if they were high paying jobs instead of distro center jobs, but hey, a job is a job. Congrats to Lexington.

[g-man430]

Originally Posted by LexingtonDad

Don't look now but Amazon.com is about to locate a distribution center in Lexington county and with it about 1200 jobs. The announcement should come next week.

Don't be so sure about that: County baits hook for Amazon | Chattanooga Times Free Press and http://www.newschannel9.com/articles...tribution.html and http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_189486.asp

[LexingtonDad]

Wanna bet?

[Akhenaton06]

I'm pretty sure a company as large as Amazon.com can establish more than one operation at a time.

[Columbiadata]

Originally Posted by gsupstate

This is great news for Lexington County. Would be even better if they were high paying jobs instead of distro center jobs, but hey, a job is a job. Congrats to Lexington.

It's great news for metro Columbia, if it happens. It would help the low-wage unemployed, the ones with the highest unemployment rate, so it would be more than a job is a job.

[Akhenaton06]

Relevant comment from the WIS-TV article about the Amazon.com distribution center:

The 90-acre location in Cayce has major advantages for Amazon, including proximity to Interstate 77 and the Columbia Metropolitan Airport. "We've never tried to steer geographically, it's always based on company needs," said Sanford. "If a company needs a port you can try to take them to Greenville, but they need to be where a port is. So it happened to be a fit between some of the attributes of the Midlands and some of the things this company was needing."

[Woodlands]

Interesting.....I can see the advantages of locating on that particuliar site. At one time I thought that NE Richland County in the Blythewood Area along Farrow Rd/I-77 was suppose to be developing into a 'Hi Tech Industry Zone'? There were several companies Bose and a few medical parks and what not that went up there. Midlands Tech built a campus some years back and I havent heard of anything else since. The housing market in that area would certainly lend itself to people being able to live and work within the NE section of the community. Amazon would have been a nice addition to this area but I can live with it just being in the Midlands. Maybe Richland County scrapped the whole high tech idea and settled for what it does best... subdivisions.

[Chi2Midlands]

Originally Posted by Woodlands

Interesting.....I can see the advantages of locating on that particuliar site. At one time I thought that NE Richland County in the Blythewood Area along Farrow Rd/I-77 was suppose to be developing into a 'Hi Tech Industry Zone'? There were several companies Bose and a few medical parks and what not that went up there. Midlands Tech built a campus some years back and I havent heard of anything else since. The housing market in that area would certainly lend itself to people being able to live and work within the NE section of the community. Amazon would have been a nice addition to this area but I can live with it just being in the Midlands. Maybe Richland County scrapped the whole high tech idea and settled for what it does best... subdivisions.

First, I think you need to separate the I-77/Farrow area (which is a Columbia, not Blythewood zip code) from the I-77/Killian-Wilson Blvd. area (which is transition area between Columbia and Blythewood zip codeS).

The former was, I think, slated to be a high-tech/medical, more white-collar-oriented economic development area, anchored by the Carolina Research Park and Providence Northeast Hospital. For the most part this area seems to be about as developed as it's going to get with the current economy - the last major buildings being the pale yellow buildings you see at the I-77/Farrow interchange (the main one housing the local operation of the University of Phoenix, among other businesses).

The latter seems to be geared toward more industrial, large-site development, although Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) does have their large operation there. This is where Bose, Siemens, Spirax Sarco, etc., are. It's also where Google is supposed to eventually build their large data center. Now, especially along Killian/Clemson, there is more commerical/retail development happening (Dick Dyer Toyota, Midlands Honda, Lowe's, Wal-Mart, assorted fast-food places, banks, gas stations, etc.) that is serving the local NE Richland residential market. I don't think Richland County "gave up" on office/industrial development in the area, but from about 2000-2008, there was a housing construction bubble in the area, which may have taken some market focus away from other developments. I think a lot of the original concepts of office/industrial development are still there, but I think they just have a much harder/longer time of coming to fruition with the economy now.

Second, frankly Amazon chose a MUCH better location in the I-77/Cayce area than anything up I-77 in Richland - it is much more conducive to logistics/distribution/trade operations with a first-class interstate interchange and proximity to the airport and the UPS mini-hub. The 12th Street/I-77 interchange, with it's surplus land available, is almost tailor-made for logistics/distribution businesses. No, I don't think Lexington vs. Richland County taxes played that much of a role, if any - it's just location, location, location.