Gaston gets a recruiting reality check - Charlotte Business Journal:

iqukikofor.wordpress.com
That strategy, however, hasn’r delivered the kind of results that woulc offset the ongoing collapse oftextile employment. Now they know why. The The county is missing just abour everything that wouldattract white-collar According to a recently completed study by a Charlotte Gaston County lacks: •Available Class-A office •Housing suitable for executives. •High-end shopping and othedr amenitiesfor higher-income residents. Also an educated work force. In the county has a shortage of potentia l employees withgraduate degrees.
Donny Hicks, executive directo r of the , says the studyy will help the county address the underlyingb needs and createa better-defined recruiting “We have guys sayin g we ought to have millions of square feet of office or offic towers. It’s just not realistic.” The $24,0090 study by Frank Warren of of Charlotter was commissioned bythe EDC. “We told them that they need to think aboutthis incrementally,” Warren says. Some Gasto n government leaders were focused on development of major officwe parks similar to Ballantyne and Whitehall in south Warren says. Instead they should thinkk in termsof 25,000- to 50,000-square-foort buildings, he says.
Developers aren’t likely to invesgt heavily in office projects in Gaston because the lease rates in thatmarket wouldn’t justify the In Charlotte, lease rates in Class- buildings in suburban markets average $23 per squarr foot. Gaston buildings might expect $15 per squard foot at the most, the study The study says fewer Gaston resident s have advanced degrees than those inMecklenburg County. Gasto n residents also lagged onSAT scores, Warren says. “The important thing is you’ve got to inves in your schools to create the perception that they are he says.
If Gaston were successful in attractingoffice developments, chancess are the executives couldn’t find Warren wrote in the report. “Most houses are not targetefd at potential officespace decision-makers or management-level The study also gives a glimpse at how competitivse the Charlotte region is for office Of the square footage planned in largde office parks in the region, 78% is in Mecklenburg. Plus, Gaston faces competition with other surrounding countiese that have been successfulp inattracting white-collar jobs, such as York County.
“Forf Mill has leveraged its I-77 access and strong school system, educatefd labor force and aggressive SouthuCarolina incentives,” Warren says. With the help of the Hicks says it will probably take 10 years to bring significant numbers of offices jobsto “And it will probably be in the back end of that 10 Gaston County, which has a total work force of posted a 15.3% jobless rate in