If the nation's top site-selection experts are correct, Salt Lake City can expect to see some major corporations move here during the rest of this decade, boosting the city's economy and providing thousands of new jobs.
That's the bottom line of a new poll released this week in which executives in charge of choosing locations and new facilities for the country's largest corporations placed Salt Lake City among the top 10 cities likely to get the lion's share of corporate expansion - and the new jobs that go with it - through the rest of the '90s.Ernst & Young Real Estate Advisory Services released the survey results this week to members of the International Association of Corporate Real Estate Executives (NACORE) at its national symposium in Seattle.
Called "Reshaping America: The Coming Migration Of Jobs and Facilities By Corporate America," the survey covered issues relating to corporate expansion and relocation plans.
Corporate real estate decision makers, all NACORE members, were asked "point-blank" which cities, and what specific growth corridors in those cities, were targeted for new or expanded distribution, office, research and development, and manufacturing facilities in the next three years, said Michael Evans, director of Ernst & Young's real estate services.
Evans said the NACORE members also said that their expansion plans were oriented toward suburban areas and that they plan to continue relocating out of major inner cities - ammunition for those who want more incentives to keep and expand industry and jobs in central cities.
Evans said that when there is major corporate movement in the Northeast region it will likely, "continue leapfrogging lock-stock-and-barrel to other regions, like the J.C. Penney move to Dallas."
He said the survey also indicates that news reports of California companies in "wholesale flight" to Utah and Nevada are exaggerated.
"The (survey) respondents told us that the movement in California will be in shorter hops, often from the coast into the inland valleys," said Evans.
While the top 10 cities are primarily in the West and South, NACORE executive director Mark Hoewing said the study reveals 16 other "preferred locations" for established business centers such as suburban Chicago and Detroit, Washington, D.C., and the Virginia suburbs, and southeast Florida.
"Further, 60 percent of respondents plan a relocation within three years - a high level of activity that shows corporate America truly is on the move," said Hoewing.
Evans said the poll also indicates that the affordability of housing is no longer the "burning issue" it once was when companies are deciding where to expand or relocate.
"When a corporation moves longer distances to a less expensive community, fewer employees relocate, and, for the most part, those that take the new jobs already have homes."
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Top 10 expansion cities
In order of preference from a list of 40 possible choices, the cities that topped executives' list of preferred locations were:
1. Atlanta North Suburbs, Georgia.
2. Dallas Far North Suburbs, Texas.
3. Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
4. Charlotte, N.C.
5. SALT LAKE CITY
6. Houston West/S.W. Suburbs, Texas
7. Sacramento, Calif.
8. Cincinnati South suburbs, Ohio
9. South Seattle-Tacoma, Wash.
10. Kansas City West Suburbs, Mo.