The Gateway Building in Maryland Farms

By CAROL STUART
Brentwood Home Page
The weather might be getting frightful outside, the business climate in Brentwood is right toasty.

While many cities across the nation and even the state still are fighting effects of the long economic downturn, the city recently received high marks in several community rankings that relate to its business and economic environment.

Brentwood was graded as the state’s second-highest business-friendly city (neighboring Franklin was third) in Tennessee’s Beacon Report and first in the subcategory of economic vitality. The city also is the state’s “smartest mid-sized city” according to the Business Journals On Numbers; it was listed as 102nd among the nation’s 3,012 cities with a population of 10-000-49,999.

 “I think third-party validation is really important in our business,” said Matt Largen, Williamson County’s director of economic development. “It's one thing for us to say how successful we've been and how much we enjoy living here and doing business here. But when you get those rankings and are able to be quantified, all of a sudden it provides validity to what we already know and to what we already think.

“I think those rankings taken together carry a great deal of weight when we’re talking to companies about moving here and talking to the consultants who work on behalf of those companies.”

Solantic, a Jacksonville, Fla.- based urgent care firm on the rise, just last week began moving into 14,000 feet of office space in Maryland Farms. The 10-year-old company, whose new CEO Mike Klein formerly operated Renal Advantage out of Brentwood, plans to expand outside Florida in 2012 into other Southeast markets and beyond.

“He grew a multi-unit business with Renal Advantage based out of Brentwood so there’s a lot of familiarity there in terms of locations and space and things like that,” said Paul Dickison, Solantic vice president of marketing.

“In some ways it's a confirmation of what we have felt and knew, and in another way it's an affirmation that we're making a good decision,” Dickison said of the rankings.

Local talent pool a plus

Largen says the pool of talent that a community has is among the chief factors sought by companies when looking to relocate or expand. One reason Solantic chose Nashville and Brentwood to base its expansion is the number of health-care companies and executives in the area, including several members of its new leadership team.

"Those rankings taken together carry a great deal of weight when we’re talking to companies about moving here and talking to the consultants who work on behalf of those companies.” MATT LARGEN

“I think you've got to prove to a company that you have a pipeline of talent already existing in the area, that you can recruit people from all over the world, and that people will move from their current location to the new location in Brentwood or Williamson County when the company makes the move,” Largen said.

“If you can address and answer all those three questions, you’re in great shape with a company. … It really starts and ends with talent, but we know people want to work and move to a place where there are jobs, but also where there is a low tax rate, where there is a low crime rate, where there are great schools and great amenities. … They all play a role  in making this an attractive place for people and for companies.”

The Beacon Report ranking for business-friendly cities recognized Brentwood’s economic vitality based on strong job growth and high median income. Quality education and low crime rate were also major factors cited for the overall ranking. The city’s low property tax rate (44 cents) was highlighted too, although a local business tax lowered its ranking to below top-ranked Farragut – which has neither a property tax nor city business tax.

“The business ranking I think looked at a variety of factors and that included everything from the quality of life, the low taxes, low crime rate, a lot of sort of intangibles, which we always felt were strong factors in making Brentwood a desirable community to locate business in,” City Manager Mike Walker said.

“It’s more than just a place to put your building. There’s a balance of things that go together to make you attractive from a business standpoint," Walker added.

Highly educated population a plus

The Business Journals ranking for smartest mid-sized cities in the U.S., meanwhile, took into account the population’s high rate of college degrees.

“I still think the key to economic development success really – and I would say the biggest predictor – is the number of people in your community who have college or advanced degrees,” Williamson County’s Largen said.

“I think there’s a direct relationship between that number and household income, a healthy community, and a community that demands great schools, low crime and amenities. I really do. If you were to isolate one variable, that’s the most important variable in economic development.”

The Business Journals cited Brentwood, using a 2009 population of 34,841, as having 42.30% with a bachelor’s degree only and another 26.49% with an advanced degree. Only 1.6% of its residents dropped out of high school and just 10.04% stopped at a high school diploma. An additional 19.50% attained an associate’s degree or attended college.

Brentwood High School moved up into the Top 100 of public high schools in the nation in the 2011 rankings by Newsweek.

“We've created a community where we place a very high priority on education,” Walker said. “That includes the public schools here, which are operated by Williamson County. And, as a city one of our highest priorities is to have what we think is the best community library in the state of Tennessee. We focus a lot on knowledge and learning and education. …

“We're in a competitive world. People can choose to live in Brentwood or they can live somewhere else when they move in. … We compete nationally. We want to be the best in the state, and I think the state recognizes that not only Brentwood but the rest of Williamson County as being one of its assets from the standpoint of recruiting new corporate headquarters, where executives can move in and their families can feel comfortable,"k Walker noted.

Brentwood ahead of the game

Largen said historical data shows how the local economy changed over time from a rural one to manufacturing and then to a service-sector economy. He wouldn’t speculate what drove the change behind the higher-education rate in Williamson County, although it could include people moving out of Nashville for more acreage and developers building bigger and nicer homes.

While Maryland Farms drove much of Brentwood’s business development, Largen also says the decision to begin recruiting corporate headquarters starting with Primus in the 1990s was “a decade or so ahead of the game.” He said to companies relocating from outside the Nashville area, Cool Springs and Brentwood are interchangeable to them.

“At some point, it was really strong county leadership that said OK, we're going to start recruiting headquarters,” Largen said. “I’m so careful not taking credit for anything that’s happened – the foundation had been laid decades before, thankfully.”

One feather in Brentwood’s cap is the high occupancy rate of its business space, although the city is limited to only  4%-5% of its zoning for commercial use, including Maryland Farms office park, and commercial districts in downtown and in the Cool Springs area.

“That 4%-5% generates about 60 percent of our total taxes that fund everything from the standpoint of your police, fire, your parks, your libraries, all of the services that we have, brush pickup, things like that,” Walker said. “… We're mainly a residential community obviously –  from a zoning standpoint we're about 90 percent residential land-use wise.

“So that 4 to 5 percent has to work really hard to support the lifestyle that we have here as a residential community and keep our taxes low. So we're very excited about being recognized as a business-friendly community because we want that 4 to 5 percent to keep paying the bill so to speak.”

If one company leaves, another comes in

Lifepoint Hospitals, however, recently announced it was leaving its Maryland Farms offices and will move across the city and county line into Metro-Nashville to expand with a new complex.  The deal with Metro requires the company to pay no taxes the first five years and not pay the full bill until 15 years down the line.

 “Everybody has to pay their fair share of the cost. … It didn't create any more jobs for Davidson County; the people aren’t going to move from anywhere else,” Walker said.

“They won the trophy, but that's their decision. But somebody's got to pay the bill. If you have one group that doesn't pay it, then the other folks have to pick up the load.

Brentwood has only about a 6% vacancy and Maryland Farms about 6.5% --and that is small, scattered office space instead of large single buildings.

“We enjoy the kind of problems that communities dream about when it comes to having that little available office space,” Largen said.