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Coalition wants new effort aimed at keeping big companies in region

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By John Nolan, Staff Writer Updated 11:46 PM Thursday, August 19, 2010

DAYTON — The Dayton Development Coalition seeks to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in additional support from member businesses and local governments to try harder to make sure that the biggest local companies stay and expand here.

A memo drafted as a strategy document for leadership of the public-private coalition states that the region’s business leaders believe “there are gaps and inefficiencies” in current retention and expansion efforts aimed at companies already here, and that the coalition has been asked to take an expanded role.

“Specifically, the large anchor companies are not being addressed in the manner needed,” according to a two-page memo prepared for the coalition’s retention and expansion ad-hoc committee.

The coalition operates on a $3.6 million annual budget largely dependent on membership fees charged to businesses and local governments. Coalition leaders now want those entities to contribute additional money to fund the broadened business retention and expansion efforts.

Those efforts are currently handled by local governments, Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Dayton Partnership and the coalition.

The coalition’s proposal, circulated in recent months, estimates that annual funding of $600,000 is needed to focus efforts on 10 key local companies and $1.2 million annually to serve 30 companies. The firms aren’t identified by name but would be in four key growth areas the coalition has identified: aerospace research and development, information technology, advanced materials and manufacturing, and human sciences and health care.

In the city of Dayton alone, a recent Dayton Daily News investigation found more than $1.5 billion in public and private money since 2000 has been spent on development in the greater downtown area. Some of the largest projects were in those growth areas including the $135 million Miami Valley Hospital heart tower, the Grandview Medical Center plan and Tech Town.

Traditionally, the coalition has concentrated its economic development activities on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and related industries. The Dayton Chamber, a business trade organization, focuses its retention and expansion efforts on its members.

The chamber has had conversations with coalition officials intended to enhance the efforts already being made and to avoid duplication, said Phil Parker, the chamber’s president and chief executive officer. The coalition began in 1994 by splitting off from the chamber.

“In general, we support the coalition’s involvement in some key industries that are important to our region,” Parker said Thursday, Aug. 19. “That would include those industries that are in their specific mission.”

The coalition’s proposal isn’t intended to blame anyone for past problems, but is an attempt to address the needs of large companies in a way that hasn’t been done, Leftwich said.

The loss of NCR Corp.’s corporate headquarters to Georgia, which NCR announced in 2009, has been a sore point for Dayton’s business and political community.

Leftwich said he hopes the new effort can become a reality within the next few months, with the support of contributors and community partners.

“Our concern is to grow the region. You’ve got to protect and defend first,” Peter Luongo, a retired Berry Co. chief executive who is a member of the coalition’s executive committee and the University of Dayton’s board of trustees, said of the plan to try and keep large companies in this region.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2242 or jnolan@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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