State certification program boosts local industrial recruitment efforts

When promoting Columbia’s “shovel-ready” sites for industrial prospects, the need for speed is paramount.

That’s where the new Missouri Certified Sites program comes in, making it easier to quickly market commercial properties in the Columbia area, local economic development professionals said.  Site selectors scouting locations need to make quick decisions, and a more systematic approach should help, they added.

“It separates the wheat from the chaff; it gives a status that other sites don’t have,” said Mike Downing, executive director of the Missouri CORE Partnership (Connecting Our Regional Economy).  “In this business, speed is the key.  What a certified site does is tell a company that they don’t have to worry about environmental, utility, land acquisition or other factors.”

Launched in October by the Missouri Department of Economic Development, the program intends to set consistent standards as to the availability and potential of land for commercial or industrial development.  Certification will give businesses considering expansion or relocation quick information as to whether a site will fit their needs.

Winning the economic development game means making it easy for site selectors to locate “shovel-ready” land upon which they can quickly begin construction. “The lack of ready sites has been our biggest weakness in attracting employees,” Columbia Chamber of Commerce Chairman Larry Moore said at a recent chamber meeting.

Developed in cooperation with electric utilities and economic development agencies across the state, the Missouri program intends to certify plots of land that are not intended for retail development and that are at least 10 acres in size, vetted by local economic development organizations and offering at least a minimum level of water, sewer and electric infrastructure.

Other criteria in the certification process may include whether the sites are properly zoned and have a completed Phase I environmental study, and whether the sites are close to an EPA air quality non-attainment area, a floodplain, wetlands, natural gas lines, telecommunications, fiberoptic lines, highways and railroad lines.

The Missouri Department of Economic Development hopes the program will reassure out-of-state site consultants and businesses.  “We’ve had other certified site programs throughout the state before through other organizations,” said Joel McNutt, director of the Missouri Certified Sites program.  “The real difference between those existing programs and the new state program is the fact that we’re going to have a state logo on it.”

Columbia’s Regional Economic Development Inc. plans to participate, making local property developers and owners aware of the program and helping to get several sites in Boone County certified, REDI Assistant Director Bernie Andrews said. The Columbia Area Jobs Foundation will also participate.

“The Department of Economic Development, the Missouri Partnership, and site selection consultants have all been working toward this standard for sites,” Andrews said.  “We don’t want to be left out of the site selection process for any major projects by not participating.”

A review team of up to 10 economic development professionals will review and approve the sites for certification four times a year.  Site owners desiring certification will submit a Notice of Intent a month in advance of the review dates.

Downing said there are about 67 total sites in the region, about 10 of which would probably go through the difficult certification process.  “The ones that are certified are certainly going to have a leg up,” he said.  “Those ten are likely the most marketable and are the larger sites.”

In Columbia, Andrews said he knew of at least three or four local developers and landowners who should be able to qualify sites for the program relatively quickly, but he predicts that another handful of local industrial-zoned parcels probably won’t be able to qualify because the owners will not establish a sale price, will not have had a Phase I environmental review completed or will not provide the needed documentation in order to be certified.

“I think the program is useful, especially from the end-user or customer standpoint,” Andrews said.  “The timeframe for site location decision has become compressed, and consultants and companies just don’t have the time to consider sites that will have future issues with utilities, zoning, price, wetlands, etc.  This program puts the burden on the landowner/developer and the local economic development groups to address these issues up front.”

Although site certification programs have been around in some form since at least 1969, they began to sprout rapidly in 2004 after the Tennessee Valley Authority and McCallum Sweeney Consulting of Greenville, S.C., announced the Industrial Megasites Certification Program, a collaborative effort meant to certify large-scale industrial sites within the TVA region.  Michigan, Alabama, New York and North Carolina have developed similar certification programs in the past, and Ameren has operated a site certification program in Illinois and Missouri for years.

“They’re taking off like wildfire,” said Adam Bruns, managing editor of Site Selection magazine.  “It’s true. Throughout the business world, there are certificate programs all over the place, and some of them may not be worth the paper they’re printed on. But, in this case, these are the real deal.”