Anchored by a strong national and local economy, Berrien County’s lead economic development agency says 2017 was “an amazing year — just incredible on all fronts,” and 2018 has the potential for more of the same. Cornerstone Alliance President Rob Cleveland shared that news in an informal manner while guest-hosting on the Moody in the Morning Show on News Talk 94.9 – WSJM Radio in the week between Christmas and New Years.
Cleveland says, “We came into the year with a new 5-year strategic plan, and while we really had some stretch goals based on looking back over historic numbers and really tried to push ourselves, in some of those areas we doubled and nearly tripled some of those goals.”
Citing 12 expansion projects, 2 new companies to the area, and 21 new business start-ups under the auspices of the Cornerstone Alliance Small Business Services team and the Women’s Business Center under the guidance of Margaret Adams, Cleveland says, “What’s most impressive, and what we’re most proud of its just the way we’ve been able to touch all areas of the county.”
Saying, “This isn’t just St. Joseph or Benton Harbor specific,” Cleveland points to Whirlpool’s major Tech Center project, LECO’s major expansion in St. Joseph Township, JR Automation’s substantive expansion in Lincoln Township, the organization’s own million dollar relocation to new headquarters along Main Street in downtown Benton Harbor, and a number of projects in Benton Charter Township, “We’ve been able to have a huge impact throughout the entire county, which is obviously what you’re after.” Cornerstone also played a major role in expansions in Hagar Township, Lake Township near Bridgman and beyond.
All of that progress in the face of a national marketplace that is “more competitive than it has ever been, and — as we’ve been saying for 18-months — it keeps getting more and more competitive.” Cleveland says, “It really makes us change and focus on what’s the most important, and that’s investing in ourselves, (the local communities.)”
Cleveland says, “Working with our existing businesses, economic development has changed, certainly since the recession and even in the last 25-years, we’re out there trying to bring in new companies, and that’s certainly one of our top focal points, but we have to make sure that the businesses here are successful, and we’ve been able to do that.”
Cleveland’s team is currently working with an Italian company, working to find the perfect fit for that firm and its 30 to 40 new employees. That’s considerable more realistic and manageable then massive projects like FoxConn which was attracted to Wisconsin and the still-to-be-determined Amazon project which will need 50,000 employees. Projects of those sizes, while studied for potential sites in our area, do take up some of his team’s time, but “We have to look at how we utilize our resources, and for the Italian prospect, we’re ‘all-in’ on that project right now, because that is the best use of our resources.”
The Italian company is visiting the area this month and Cleveland says, “We think we have a real good shot at landing the deal. We’ve been showing them a number of different sites, and that’s obviously what we want to do, provide them with a variety of options. You don’t want to have just one site for them to consider, so we’re really excited about that.” He adds, “We have a number of projects in the pipeline, and that’s just one good example of what we do every day.”
Cleveland spends a lot of time working with lawmakers at both the state and federal level, and says one of the biggest changes for him in coming from Indiana a couple of years ago is that Michigan has a full-time legislature while Indiana’s is part time, “so there’s a lot more going on here, and it involves a lot more interaction with those folks making sure they understand our needs and we had a really big year from a lawmaking standpoint throughout the state.”
The President of Cornerstone Alliance says, “Quite honestly, Michigan does have a lot of tools to use, and ultimately I encourage folks at the state level to give us more tools to work with. If we don’t want to use those tools, if the community doesn’t want to offer tax abatements or they don’t want to do tax increment financing, that should be up to us at the local level. So, I’m constantly saying, ‘Hey, we need more tools,’ and the legislature gave us more tools this year.” He adds that both State Rep Kim LaSata and State Sen. John Proos “gave us full support on a transformational brownfield package which was a big deal, and also the Good Jobs for Michigan bill that helps create additional incentives when a company is creating a significant number of jobs.”
As much as they accomplished in 2017 in the Michigan Legislature, however, Cleveland says there’s one major thing that keeps coming up “that we can’t get across the finish line — a border bill.” The professional economic developer says, “Basically that means that when a company comes and we’re giving them incentives, the state of Michigan will not incentivize Indiana employees.” Pointing out that, “We certainly want Michigan companies to hire Michigan employees — there’s no doubt that that’s our preference — but for those communities on the border, the bottom line is we have people coming in from Indiana and Illinois, driving to our communities every day, so what I would tell you is that companies who are hiring, like this Italian company we are working with, they don’t care where their workers are coming from.”
Cleveland cites a real life scenario. Vickers Engineering right here in Berrien County expanded about this time last year. They’re three miles from the state of Indiana, so if the state of Michigan gives them an incentive to expand and they can’t use that on Indiana workers, it eliminates 30 to 40-percent of the potential employees that they’re bringing in.” He adds, “It’s really important and something that quite honestly Senator Proos has carried the water for us on, quite a bit, but we can’t get it through the state House. Nevertheless, we’re really going to be focusing on this border bill to really try and tap into some Indiana workers.”
Cleveland says they also work closely with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and “We had a robust year in terms of working on expansion projects, but we didn’t see a lot of attraction projects come through this year, however in December — typically after Thanksgiving — things always slow down, but that did not happen this year. It was actually the opposite, so we saw a number of new leads from the State of Michigan which has been a fantastic partner and they’re working really hard on some other things that you maybe wouldn’t consider traditional economic development.”
One such project being supported by the MEDC is the pedestrian bridge linking St. Joseph and Benton Harbor over the Paw Paw River near Harbor Shores. That state support was driven by Whirlpool’s substantial investment in the Tech Center expansion project. The bridge is expected to be complete in the summer ahead.
Cleveland says, “We get a tremendous amount of support from the folks at MEDC in Lansing, and we can always use more, but they’re big fans of what’s going on here, and the new head of the organization Jeff Mason brought his team to town in the last month, so we have a number of projects that we think are really good and have some potential to be funded and we always want to give them more, whether it’s with the MEDC or federal dollars, we always say ‘We want more than our fair share,’ so we’re going to be sending them a number of projects and make them tell us, ‘No.'”
With regard to workforce issues, Cleveland says, “It’s difficult to find new workers and get them into the workforce, so we’re working with our partners at Kinexus to make sure we’re supplying workers, but it’s no longer just going out and trying to bring in new companies the size and scale of FoxConn and Amazon, that’s just not a way to success.”
He adds, “if you’re not working today, it’s probably because you don’t want to, or you’re retired and don’t need to.” There are many jobs going unfilled as a result.
One thing is certain, armed with a new front row seat in new headquarters along Main Street in downtown Benton Harbor, Rob Cleveland and his team are doing anything but simply resting on their laurels. Their 100-year old building rehab was on time and at budget and the new, vibrant, modern workplace has the team working together like a well-oiled machine racing headlong into 2018 and beyond.
