The Research Valley Creates Favorable Environment for Business
Published Nov 20, 2008
Whether it’s small-town ambiance or a large metropolitan area with a host of amenities, Research Valley is able to offer any company looking to relocate to or expand within the region plenty of options.
With municipalities of varying sizes and the attendant benefits that they’re able to bring to the table, companies are spoiled for choices throughout the region. The more rural areas can and do offer advantageous land deals for industries, while the more urban settings are able to compete with tax breaks and other incentives.
The region – which includes Brazos, Burleson, Grimes, Leon, Madison, Robertson and Washington counties – also boasts knowledge assets such as Texas A&M University and Blinn College, both of which produce highly skilled, educated graduates for employers and ongoing, specialized workforce development and training programs that can be customized to meet most business needs.
“We’re working right now with a lot of motels, because we’re building an expo center for the county,” says Ken Jones, executive director of the Buffalo Economic Development Corp. in Leon County. “We’ve got a Hampton Inn opening and a couple of others that are getting started in advance of the center.”
Leon County planners have begun the site-selection process for the center, which when finished will seat around 6,000 people and be a hub for sporting events, large-scale rodeos and other tourist-friendly programs, Jones says.
“We’ll spend around $3 million on the project, and we’re willing to do that because we think it will greatly enhance our tourism potential,” he says. “We have a lot of major industry in our area, including Nucor Steel, so we’re pretty well known as an industrial community. We certainly want to continue in that regard, but we’re also looking at going in a different direction, as well.”
In Burleson County, the focus is on growing the business base with industrial park acreage, promoting the area’s proximity to most of the state’s population centers and transportation offerings, and touting its rural quality-of-life amenities as well.
“We have some land available at the county industrial park, which is within the city limits, and we’ve also got a nine-acre and six-acre tract that we’re selling along with vacant land adjoining the industrial park,” says Sal Zaccagnino, treasurer of the Burleson County Industrial Foundation and a member of its board of directors. “We’re working with several companies coming in that want large parcels of land, but also want access to city services. With these, we can offer them both.”
The county has scored some major coups in recent months, including landing a FedEx distribution center. That, in turn has been a key factor in securing companies such as Ceres Inc., a seed-research firm out of Thousand Oaks, Calif., which is building an office and research complex on land adjacent to the FedEx center.
“They’re building on a five-acre tract, but they’ve leased 200 acres of land to do their plant research,” Zaccagnino says. “We’ve been fortunate that our private landowners have been very proactive and working with us and being reasonable in terms of land costs.”
These recent successes, along with ongoing revitalization and adaptive reuse of existing structures, are being replicated throughout Research Valley. Economic development officials are finding that one or two new players can reinvigorate an entire area, and they’re wasting no time building on those successes.
“A big company coming here makes us a beacon for potential future relocations, and these professionals move into the community and that helps us as well,” Zaccagnino says. “And that brings more business and more people, and we’re able to keep on developing and working on new projects.”
Story by Joe Morris
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