he concentric rings of development that emanate from the Main Line metros of the Northeast encourage their own brand of state-hopping among companies seeking the best business environment for their current operations. Take the move by aviation systems maker ESCO of one of its divisions from its home base of Aston, Pa., to Bridgeport, N. J., with the lease of 273,000 sq. ft. (25,362 sq. m.) in the 3,000-acre (1,214-hectare) Pureland Industrial Park. Or the recent move of 650 American Automobile Association Mid-Atlantic employees from Philadelphia to Wilmington, Del., with company leaders citing Delaware's tax structure and incentives. Yet Philly had no trouble keeping Aramark at home.
        The January 2004 decision by the customized service company to remain in center city Philadelphia meant a 15-year, 300,000-sq.-ft. (27,870-sq.-m.) commitment to the namesake Aramark Tower, and follows on the center city's landing of formerly suburban-based American Business Financial Services in the summer of 2003, meaning the transfer downtown of 700 employees. Aramark has been headquartered in Philly since making one of its many acquisitions there in 1961, but had included Delaware and New Jersey in its most recent facilities analysis.
        Company spokesperson Michelle Davidson confirms that Aramark fills more than half of Aramark Tower, built in 1986, with its 1,200 downtown employees, but employs 6,000 in the greater Philadelphia area, which includes Delaware and New Jersey. So the dance between collaboration and rivalry continues. And "What have you done for me lately?" is a cry as likely to be heard in the halls of economic development as in the boardrooms of the companies they're trying to keep. In many cases, what's being done centers on new work force needs and making old properties work.

No Business Like Old Business

In a report issued in early 2004 by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers on the plastics manufacturing needs of northeast manufacturers, respondents claimed that improvements to their current manufacturing processes will be the number one factor in staying competitive in the marketplace. In many cases, that involves retooling or reconfiguring existing space. That idea of expansion built on innovative re-use resonates throughout the collective corporate project portfolio of the Northeast region.
        In Utica, N.Y., brownfield projects are being pursued by Northrop Grumman at a former TRW property and by the city itself at a former Bossert Manufacturing site - the very location where Gov. George Pataki signed brownfield legislation into law in October 2003.
        Goodyear Dunlop Tires of North America – a joint venture between Goodyear and Sumitomo Rubber – has finished construction of a 100,000-sq.-ft. (9,290-sq.-m.), $4.3-million facility for Utica Converters, the Mohawk Valley 2003 Business of the Year, which makes engineered textile reinforcements used in tires. The company employs 191 at its existing plant next door, and plans to add around 20 more to the payroll with the expansion, which was built on five acres (two hectares) previously occ upied by Foster Paper Co. The move will allow Utica Converters to bring all functions to a single location. The project was a build-to-suit by Kansas City, Mo.-based Butler Real Estate, which is leasing the facility to Utica Converters for a period of up to 20 years.
        In the Gold Coast section of New Jersey, the old 24-acre (10-hectare) Maxwell House site is turning into condos, thanks to the $76-million sale of the property to a joint venture between Toll Brothers and Pinnacle Development, brokered by the CB Richard Ellis New York Tri-State Investment Team. Over in Hamilton Township, Preferred Real Estate Investments' $70-million redevelopment of the former American Standard bathroom fixture plant, on 112 acres (45 hectares), is under way, with office space the primary end product.
        In South Brunswick, a 200,000-sq.-ft. (18,580-sq.-m.) facility and its 29-acre (12-hectare) parcel formerly occupied by Permalite/Stauffer is being turned into a 440,000-sq.-ft. (40,876-sq.-m.) industrial facility by Matrix Development Group, one of the state's leaders in industrial facility development over the past year. And in Edison – a birthplace of innovation if ever there were one – home furnishings distributor Victoria Classics, a subsidiary of Textiles of Europe Inc., is taking over the 1-million-sq.-ft. (92,900-sq.-m.) facility abandoned by Electrolux, although its job totals will only amount to about a third of the Electrolux payroll before the company closed the plant in 2003.
        There lies the crux of the new corporate landscape in the Northeast – and the whole nation, for that matter: Progressive re-use is on the upswing, but will progressive job and income growth be its companion?
        Toward that end, education and training resources always receive close examination from site seekers, but direct operational-improvement re-sources aren't always available. That's not the case in Pennsylvania. The region of Northeast Pennsylvania surrounding the Lehigh Valley is just one of several parts of the state seeing significant incremental growth in its tax base as the result of improving corporate operations, in addition to locating or expanding them. Between 1989 and 2001, Ben Franklin Technology Partners (BFTP), a four-center statewide network that serves to drive entrepreneurship and technological innovation, has helped boost the state's tax revenues by some $400 million while simultaneously boosting its clients' productivity in plants old and new.
        In the 19-county Northeast region alone, BFTP, an offshoot of the Pennsylvania DCED, embarked on 41 projects during 2002-2003, including the operation of eight incubators and assistance to 33 companies. The projects were often related to new facility development, and include such outcomes as manufacturing process documentation, decreased electricity consumption by a core motor product and development of new machines for the manufacture of industrial power brushes.