Region Sees 1.8B Invested, 36,363 New Jobs in 2012
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The efforts of economic development organizations in northeastern Ohio resulted in business investment projects during 2012 that are projected to create or retain 36,363 jobs, more than $1.6 billion in payroll and nearly $1.8 billion in capital investment, according to a report (CLICK HERE) released this morning.
The Northeast Ohio 2012 year-end economic development report represents the first time development agencies in the 18-county region have collaborated on a “collective annual report of what we’ve all accomplished together,” said Tom Waltermire, CEO of Team Northeast Ohio, which produced the report. Agencies contributing to the findings include the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber and other chambers of commerce, JumpStart, Magnet and NorTech.
The collaborative report was made possible in part because the JobsOhio economic development program established a statewide information system that allowed projects to be tracked in the same way, Waltermire said.
"Creating something like this has been a vision that we've all had for years but we've been hampered by the fact that different communities measure different things, and not all in the same way. Now we have a common database that made it possible," he explained. "It's too important for the people of the region not to understand the full impact of all this economic development effort."
The report “helps us identify what our role is in that bigger picture and how we partner” in the region, said Tom Humphries, president/CEO of the Regional Chamber. “It’s a good tool to educate the public on what is going on in northeast Ohio and the Youngstown-Warren market,” he said.
Regional trends identified in the report include the rebound in manufacturing, driven in part by continuing development of the Utica shale play. As the significance of these deposits is multiplied, the region is becoming a “location of choice for companies seeking to capitalize on natural and liquid gas,” states the report. “Investments of more than $5 billion already have been pledged to shale-related projects within 40 miles of Youngstown and Canton.” They include Paris-based Vallouric’s $1.1 billion investment in its V&M Star operations in Youngstown, Exterran’s new 65,000-square-foot manufacturing plant unveiled yesterday (READ STORY) and Valerus’ partnership with Brilex Industries here.
“We are really just in the early stages of that development,” Waltermire said. While many of these projects will serve oil and gas development in the region, they will also the national industry boom under way, he noted.
In addition to the “large-scale” investment in manufacturing taking place in the Mahoning Valley, Cleveland and Akron, other regional trends include growth in the biomedical sector and strong emerging clusters in flexible electronics, water treatment and advanced energy.
The region also benefited last year from the attention paid during the 2012 presidential election, Waltermire said.
“Our region got a lot of terrific national press for our economic performance, and many national and international news organizations were here and sending back headlines and feature audio/video stories telling why Ohio and northeast Ohio is doing better economically than a lot of the rest of the country,” he remarked. “That kind of publicity for this region is impossible to buy and is great to see.”
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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