Winter 2014
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Richland
Visitors walk through Finlay Park in downtown Columbia, the scene of many community events. (Photo/Richland County Government)
Richland County
Central and Thriving
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By Mike Fitts
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veryone in South Carolina knows that all roads seem to lead to Columbia. The capital was situated in the Midlands in part to be a central meeting point for the state. Today the Midlands region still serves that role, with three interstate highways coming together here. This junction has been an economic advantage for Richland County for decades. It also has benefited from another powerful conduit: the thousands of graduates who launch careers after completing their degrees at universities there.
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Richland Coun By the numbersty
Population, 2013...... ..................... 398,3 39 Projected Population by 2018.........421,3 91 2013-2018 Annual Growth Rate.......... 1.13% Per Capita Income Personal Income (B EA 2012)........ $38,1 95 Median Household Income, 2013......... ......................... $5 0,118 Median Home Value , 2013............ S165,81 2 Source: Richland County Economic Development
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The new Moore School of Business building at the University of South Carolina is working toward generating as much electricity as it uses. (Photo/Andy Owens)
The county’s central location often is key when officials are speaking with a potential business relocation prospect, according to Nelson Lindsay, the county’s economic development director. There are not many communities that can match Richland County’s connections to the Northeast, Georgia and Florida. To the southeast, of course, is another vital economic connection: A 90-minute trip down Interstate 26 leads to the Port of Charleston. Richland County also offers two top-level railroad connections and easy access to both Columbia Metropolitan and Charlotte airports. Put together, the infrastructure and location at the center of the state are a big economic asset for the county, and one that has helped draw companies here for years. “It doesn’t matter how you ship your product, we can do it easily here,” Lindsay said. Those highways have another economic bonus for Richland County. It’s easier to commute than in many other areas. Getting across the Midlands usually takes 30 minutes or less. That’s not something that can be said in Charlotte or Atlanta, cities that might be in competition for an economic expansion project. That mobility for the
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workforce offers a good selling point for the Midlands as it looks to attract new employers, Lindsay said.
USC a major driver Like the transportation infrastructure, the educational strength based in Richland County has been helping build its economy for decades. The colleges and universities based in the county supply direct economic spending, the power of intellectual property being created and well-educated young people joining the economy. The largest, of course, is the main campus of the University of South Carolina, with more than 30,000 students. “It’s a major driver for our economy,” Lindsay said. In 2013, numbers, USC outlined its economic contributions to the Midlands: • More than 3,000 university employees living in the county earn more than $183 million in salaries. • More than 40,000 university alumni live in the county. • USC as a whole filed more than 400 invention disclosures between 2008 and 2013, receiving 66 U.S. patents and executing 86 intellectual
property licenses. In addition to the contribution of the four-year universities, Richland County has benefited economically from the efforts of Midlands Technical College, Lindsay said. The college has numerous programs, from nursing to nuclear engineering, that directly relate to needed career fields in the Midlands. It is quick to work with employers and economic development officials to help the county grow its economy, Lindsay noted. For Lindsay, the strength of the colleges in Richland County means a more talented workforce to attract companies. Between Midlands Tech and the other universities here, employers can count on Richland County to meet their workforce needs and to adapt to changing technology and opportunities, Lindsay said. “We have the broad spectrum of work training covered,” Lindsay said.
Talent helps create clusters The talent of the universities here has helped the economy create several successful economic clusters, such as the local concentration of talent related to information
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technology and the insurance industry. Overall in South Carolina, the cluster employs more than 14,000 people and has a direct economic impact of more than $4 billion, according to the iTs-SC collaborative group for the cluster. Now numerous companies serve the insurance industry from Richland County. One of the largest is BlueCross and BlueShield of South Carolina. It has 6,000 employees in Richland County out of 11,000 statewide. The company not only is the state’s leading health insurance provider, but it also provides a variety of insurance IT services, including subsidiaries that serve the Tricare and Medicare programs. Another service that BlueCross provides is to host data and processing for other companies, known as “insourcing.” BlueCross has one of the largest IT departments in the state, according to spokeswoman Elizabeth G. Hammond, with more than 1,000 employees. That growth by BlueCross has been aided by the depth of talent in Richland County and the ability to attract talent to come here, Hammond said. “Having such a large grouping of IT talent in Richland County means these professionals are more likely to stay in the area,” Hammond said. Insurance IT has been a steady business for Richland County, which can boast that it has a deep pool of employers that offer economic stability. State government, Fort Jackson, higher education and a strong medical/hospital sector offer a healthy base of employment. In fact, according to an economic analysis prepared by the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce, more than half of the top 20 employers in the county are government or governmentrelated. These stable employers frequently have given it an unemployment rate below the South Carolina average, and have helped cushion Richland County during the recent recession. Home prices, for instance, fluctuated less in the Midlands than they did in other parts of South Carolina.
Impact of Fort Jackson Fort Jackson is a massive but sometimes unappreciated driver for the economy in Richland County. The scope of what goes Special Advertising Section
A U.S. Army band performs during a ceremony at Fort Jackson. (Photo/Richland County)
on at the Army post can be hard to appreciate: It covers some 52,000 acres and trains 50% of those taking the Army’s Basic Combat Training. A 2011 study estimated that the base generated $1.69 billion in economic activity across the region and supported a total of 14,640 jobs. While those steady employers are what many people think of when they hear Richland County’s name, the county also shows strength in manufacturing, and that is growing, too. In Lower Richland, Westinghouse operates a major facility to manufacture nuclear fuel, which is supplied to power plants around the country. The massive manufacturing facility employs about 1,200 people. Another manufacturer doing high-end work in Richland County is Pure Power. As a subsidiary of Navistar, it builds diesel engine parts, mostly fuel injectors, in a hightech facility in Blythewood. Most of what it produces is shipped to Navistar truck plants elsewhere in the United States. This facility is quite different from what people might expect of an auto manufacturing plant based on outdated perceptions, said Jerry Sweetland, plant manager for Pure Power. The equipment is multimilliondollar, and the temperature and humidity are controlled carefully. To run and maintain that equipment requires some sophisticated technical and engineering skills, Sweetland said. There’s a strong demand in the Midlands for those with the technical skills to support advanced manufacturing, so keeping a skilled workforce in place is an important challenge,
Sweetland said. “You can’t just hire folks off the street,” he said. To continue to meet Pure Power’s staffing needs, the company has been working with Midlands Tech, including taking part in its apprenticeship programs. Midlands Tech has been quick to make sure that it is teaching the kinds of skills that Pure Power and other advanced manufacturers need, Sweetland said. The ability of the local colleges to meet this need is a major factor in Pure Power’s success in Richland County, he said.
Quality workforce attractive The quality of the workforce here is one of the reasons Richland County is attracting new manufacturing, Lindsay said. The county is especially appealing to a business that is doing advanced work and needs a workforce to match. Pharmaceutical products manufacturer The Ritedose Corp. announced in September that it would add capacity to its existing facility in the county, located in the Carolina Research Park in Richland Northeast. It’s an investment of up to $110 million at a location where Ritedose has manufactured drops, inhalation products and other medications for more than 20 years. The expansion, when complete and approved, is projected to create about 65 jobs. “Ritedose has been an excellent corporate citizen in Richland County for 20 years, and this significant expansion represents a continued commitment to our community,” Norman Jackson, chairman of Richland County Council, said at the time of the
County Spotlight: Richland The Village at Sandhill is a major shopping destination in Northeast Richland. (Photo/Richland County Government)
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expansion announcement. “The company will be creating more tech jobs for our citizens, which is the number one goal of our economic development efforts,” he said. Another source of new employment in Richland County has been call centers and technical support centers. These centers often provide technical help for users of home electronics or back-office support for customers of insurance or other companies. That is an area that could continue to produce more skilled jobs here in the future, Lindsay said. What makes Columbia a place that continues to develop and keep talent? Lindsay notes that a lot of it has to do with the quality of life here. Richland County offers a variety of locations for people to work and live, from the suburban Irmo area
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to downtown Columbia, which increasingly attract retailers, restaurants and attractions that compare favorably with other big cities. Northeast Richland is crowded with new growth along its interstate corridors, while Lower Richland offers space for businesses, places to live and the recreational opportunities of Congaree National Park.
Quality of life “On quality of life, we offer a diversity of offerings for someone to choose from,” Lindsay said. Those choices soon will include the Columbia Common, the project that is redeveloping the former Department of Mental Health site on Bull Street. That site, expected to be the home to office, residential and commercial development, will be
Horses head to pasture on a farm in Lower Richland. (Photo/Richland County Government)
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Suburban Lake Murray living is an attraction for many, but Richland offers a variety of residential styles. (Photo/Richland County Government)
dominated by a new baseball park, expected to welcome a minor-league team in 2016. The Columbia Common development is planned to preserve and re-use several of the historic buildings on the site and give Columbia a new destination and source of growth, even as it has room for up to 3,500 residences on more than 150 acres. More announcements about projects that bring this underused area to new life are expected soon. Between the growth linked to the region’s educational strength, the new startups being spun out of its knowledge economy, and increasing retail opportunities, Richland County is becoming a growth destination above and beyond its successful traditional employers. “It’s coming into its own,” Lindsay said.
Affordable home construction is booming in suburban parts of Richland County. (Photo/Richland County Government)