The way central Ohio attracts and keeps jobs is expected to change in the near future, as part of a proposed shakeup involving local economic-development groups.
The new economic-development plan, called Columbus 2020, was rolled out to the public for the first time yesterday by Alex Fischer, president and CEO of the Columbus Partnership, the local leadership group behind the plan.
It's designed to revitalize the way central Ohio communities attract and retain business, he told a Columbus Metropolitan Club audience.
"This is a community that, candidly, has not historically invested much in economic development," Fischer said.
He said the 35 members of the Columbus Partnership -- mostly CEOs whose companies represent 20 percent of the central Ohio work force -- have committed to taking a new approach and "opening their checkbooks" to advance the cause.
A "transition plan" to implement that new vision is under way, he said, and involves city and county economic-development departments as well as the Columbus Chamber, CompeteColumbus, TechColumbus and the Mid-Ohio Development Exchange.
The goal is to unveil a new structure for regional development efforts by June.
The three key goals of Columbus 2020 during the next decade are adding 180,000 jobs in central Ohio -- "a doubling of this region's historic job-creation rate" -- achieving 40 percent per-capita income growth and being ranked in the top 10 communities in the nation for economic development.
Fischer has made similar presentations this month to the leaders of several groups, including the Mid-Ohio Development Exchange and Experience Columbus, the city's convention bureau.
The former organization favors cooperation in general but has a "laundry list" of concerns, said Gus Comstock, economic development director for Delaware County and a member of the development exchange.
"My concern about the Columbus 2020 project is that all the (partnership's) CEOs are from Columbus and Franklin County companies," Comstock said. "We want to make sure that our interests are represented. Why not call it Mid-Ohio 2020 instead of Columbus 2020?"
Central Ohio should be an attractive community in which to establish or expand a business, Fischer said yesterday. In particular, he praised local assets such as COSI, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Ohio State University, Battelle and Chemical Abstracts.
But Fischer added that there are sobering indicators showing central Ohio has lost ground in economic development during the past decade. Columbus' per-capita income has slid from $1,500 above the national average in 2000 to $1,000 below the national average in 2009, he said, citing federal statistics.
The last major corporate relocation Columbus landed, he said, was American Electric Power in 1983.
Fischer has previous experience with economic development.
He joined the Columbus Partnership in November, after seven years as a Battelle executive and with prior experience as deputy governor and economic-development chief for the state of Tennessee.
While a consultant to the Columbus Partnership last year, he helped organize visits with other city leaders in Austin, Texas; Minneapolis; and Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
One impression from those visits was that central Ohio does not lack for resources, he said, but lags in terms of image, organization and a regional approach to economic development.
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