very corporate real estate director knows FM Global, widely known as Factory Mutual, and renowned for insuring industrial properties worldwide. Now the firm itself, Rhode Island's largest private company, is pursuing a $60-million, 340,000-sq.-ft. (31,586-sq.-m.) new headquarters campus in its hometown since the early 1800s: Johnston, R.I. The process has inspired the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation (RIEDC) to propose new rules to strengthen the agency's expedited permitting process, called "Certificate of Critical Economic Concern" (CCEC).
   "With the lease on our current headquarters expiring in July 2009, FM Global was faced with a tight time frame under which to explore options for the future location of our corporate headquarters," said Shivan S. Subramaniam, FM Global's chairman and CEO, in a December news release. "First and foremost we were looking for a timely review by state and local officials of our plans to build a new headquarters. RIEDC helped us bring the right parties together to quickly assist us. Within 48 hours of notifying EDC that our current headquarters would not meet our future needs, we met with Governor Carcieri, the director of the Department of Environmental Management, the director of the Department of Transportation and the executive director of the Economic Development Corporation. Together with town officials from Johnston, these officials committed to and delivered a coordinated and expedited review of our proposed plans to build a new headquarters."
   As a result of that experience, proposed changes to the CCEC program were issued for public comment in January. RIEDC spokesperson Melissa Withers in early April said all systems were go, and the rules were due to be ratified by the organization's board of directors at their next meeting on April 28. The new rules include directing the program toward companies that commit to keep or create more than 100 high wage jobs, development projects that create more than 50,000 sq. ft. (4,645 sq. m.) and have more than 50 percent of total development square footage dedicated to new office or commercial space, and projects that are located in cities or towns that also agree to a coordinated and expedited project review process. The proposed rule changes will also remove the current fee requirement to participate in the program.
   "FM Global's decision to build its new headquarters here in Rhode Island is a great example of bringing the full power of the state together in a coordinated way to keep and grow high-wage jobs in Rhode Island," said Saul Kaplan, RIEDC executive director.
   "FM Global is an important part of the Johnston community, and we were very determined to keep their new corporate headquarters in our town," said Mayor Joseph Polisena of the company, which expanded its payroll in the town by 13 percent in 2007 alone. "We know how important a predictable decision process is to corporate executives, and Johnston delivered."
   The four-story complex, aiming for LEED certification, will occupy a 93-acre (37.6-hectare) company-owned parcel just down the street from the 800-employee company's current headquarters, and is expected to be complete by mid-2009. Subramaniam cited the needs of those 800 employees as primary criteria in the year-long site selection process, which was being driven in large part by the July 2009 expiration of the company's 25-year lease at its current location.
   That property is owned by Capital Lease Funding, which purchased it in April 2007. CLF legal counsel have claimed the company was not allowed proper input into FM Global's permitting process. Nevertheless, FM Global broke ground on the new campus on April 10.
   FM Global's New England presence is not limited to Johnston. The company maintains a high-profile research campus in Glocester, R.I., where its innovative testing takes place. And it maintains offices in Norwood, Mass., and Waltham, Mass., which employ 850 of the company's 4,800 employees worldwide.
   RIEDC is not resting on its laurels. Among projects and issues it's championing is the relocation of I-195 in Providence, which will open up approximately 19 acres (7.7 hectares) for redevelopment.    Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick's $1-billion life sciences initiative is not quite law. But in April it was close enough to the finish line for Organogenesis, a maker of artificial skin based in Canton, to announce it would suspend its site search and stay in Massachusetts, where it will eventually expand to 600 from its current payroll of 325.
   The company, like so many others in the Boston biotech corridor, got its start from innovations dreamed up at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Now the reality from those dreams will occupy 250,000 sq. ft. (23,225 sq. m.) instead of the current 79,000 sq. ft. (7,339 sq. m.), in two industrial buildings adjacent to the firm's current headquarters.
   Current average payroll at Organogenesis is $77,000. The company is slated to receive a $12.9-million incentive package that is part of $250 million in tax breaks for qualifying firms that would be funded by the governor's life sciences initiative. Another $12.9 million from that tranche will help pay for sewage infrastructure improvements related to Genzyme's $260-million expansion in Framingham at a 14-building complex. According to a Boston Globe report, that company and others in the sector are gradually being forced out of the rare and expensive real estate in Cambridge: today Genzyme counts approximately 1,300 employees in Cambridge and 1,800 in Framingham.
   Among other line items in the life sciences initiative are two University of Massachusetts research centers in Amherst and Worcester that will cost a cumulative $185 million.
   Among other measures filed by Gov. Patrick this legislative session was a proposal introduced in January to reduce the corporate tax rate from 9.5 percent in FY 2009 to 8.3 percent by FY 2012. The same measure would also close two corporate tax loopholes: combined reporting and "check the box" conformity, which involves removing the possibility that companies can identify themselves in different ways for federal and state tax authorities. The package was being debated in the legislature in early April.
   In the meantime, Massachusetts takes no back seat to Rhode Island when it comes to major insurer expansions. Liberty Mutual in late February announced a 300-job expansion in Springfield that will feature a national customer service call center at the former Springfield Armory at STCC Park. The company also was adding 30 more sales positions to its statewide employment base of 4,400 in anticipation of the inception of managed competition in the state on April 1.    At the organization's fall economic outlook conference in November 2007, New England Economic Partnership Vice President and James R. Carter professor at the University of New Hampshire's Whittemore School of Business and Economics Ross Gittell noted that the region has been experiencing slow growth in population and employment: "There is no single factor causing the current vulnerability in New England's regional competitiveness," he noted, "but rather a confluence of factors that will have to be addressed to ensure a strong regional economic future. Noteworthy among these factors are indications that the region is experiencing a decline in 'attractiveness' to young adults and businesses expanding employment."
   "The problems of the region are diverse – some are best addressed at a regional level, while some might best be addressed in individual states," added NEEP President Michael Goodman, Director of Economic and Public Policy Research at the UMass Donahue Institute. "There are, however, a number of critical areas where New England's leaders should seriously consider working together, specifically in the areas of transportation and energy policy where the need for careful planning and prudent investment strategies is present in all six New England states. If New England is to become more competitive and once again lead rather than lag national economic growth, these issues need to be successfully addressed."
   That said, NEEP forecast that New Hampshire would stand apart from its New England neighbors for the period 2006-2011, increasing its gross state product by 3 percent annually while the others muddle along at 2.2 percent. New Hampshire is also expected to lead the region in total employment growth, and is the only state in New England NEEP expects to grow at a rate above the national average, with employment growth averaging 1.7 percent annually.
   Helping the state keep that leadership role is Lonza Biologics, whose $300-million, 350-job expansion in Portsmouth is recognized elsewhere in this issue as a Top Deal of 2007 Honorable Mention. The 330,000-sq.-ft. (30,657-sq.-m.) facility is designed to house biotherapeutics manufacturing technologies as well as offices, warehouse and support systems, said the company in May 2007. The Portsmouth site is the largest scale mammalian cell culture plant commissioned to date by Lonza, which already was adding a 5,000-liter bioreactor to the complex, expected to be in place by mid-2008.
   "The new facility in Portsmouth will further strengthen Lonza's position as the leading supplier to the life-science industry," said Stephan Kutzer, Head of Lonza Biopharmaceuticals. "We will be able to offer our customers tailor-made solutions in manufacturing, with cutting edge fermentation technologies and new throughput-boosting downstream processing."
   The project was originally introduced directly on the heels of a 277,000-sq.-ft. (25,733-sq.-m.) expansion completed in 2004. It was put on hold due to overcapacity in the market, and revived in August 2006 as new biopharma products neared regulatory approval. Construction on the company's 17-acre (7-hectare) campus at Pease International Tradeport is anticipated to be complete by mid-2009.
   Elsewhere in 2007, the company launched its second large-scale mammalian cell culture plant in Singapore, continued facility expansion in China, grew its active pharmaceutical ingredient capacity in Visp, Switzerland, and also grew by acquisition via a project in Shawinigan, Québec.
   Further emphasizing the global nature of the biotech surge – and the importance of higher education to that surge – Great Bay Community College, located next door to Lonza's campus at Pease, established a dual degree program in industrial biotechnology in March with FAS, Ireland's national training and employment authority, whose biopharma training facility is located near Cork, Ireland.