Economic Development - Expansions and Relocations

[Guest]

I've been hearing Nashville was getting it for about 3 months, but recently heard something somewhat positive toward Charlotte's bid, so time will tell.

[smeagolsfree]

40 minutes ago, J-Rob said:

Well the fact that you are a Nashville area moderator is probably a good clue.  Disappointing for Charlotte if I am connecting dots appropriately.

Good guess. It has not broken in Nashville yet, but should shortly. This is actually a corporate HQ relocation. Either city would have been great and the fact that we got it over Charlotte surprised me as you guys are very much a banking/financial powerhouse.

 

I was shocked to say the least.

[CLT2014]

Not sure of the source, but saying AllianceBernstein HQ to Nashville. Approx 1,000 employees. Only one reporting it so far. 

https://www.nashvillepost.com/business/finance/article/21003153/global-asset-management-firm-picks-nashville-for-hq

Edited May 1, 2018 by CLT2014

[KJHburg]

Well remember their parent (of Alliance Bernstein) is AXA which is adding 550 jobs in Charlotte this was announced last year.  I am thinking they did not want to compete with their own parent for employees.  Average salary $110,000 for that expansion.

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2017/05/09/exclusive-axa-expanding-in-charlotte-with-550-jobs.html

Lets go pluck an Apple now!  In eco development sometimes personal issues may come into play.   And good win for Nashville but heaven help the traffic since they have no light rail but are voting today I think. 

[Cadi40]

Charlotte is a much better city for a company like AB, I’m not fully caught up on this situation however so I can’t speak.

[smeagolsfree]

35 minutes ago, CLT2014 said:

Not sure of the source, but saying AllianceBernstein HQ to Nashville. Approx 1,000 employees. Only one reporting it so far. 

https://www.nashvillepost.com/business/finance/article/21003153/global-asset-management-firm-picks-nashville-for-hq

That's the source and its solid. It was confirmed through unnamed sources with the company. 

[CLT2014]

24 minutes ago, Cadi40 said:

Charlotte is a much better city for a company like AB, I’m not fully caught up on this situation however so I can’t speak.

The firm is struggling and AXA has been burning through the leadership and board of directors at AB to turn it around. While the firm cited real estate taxes, business tax, etc... their #1 expense is their people and salaries. Nashville's average salary for investment associates is below the national median, allowing AB to offer significant pay cuts to employees who do relocate and then be able to keep them. In a relocation to Charlotte, while they could still cut salaries compared to New York, it would still be above the national average due to the competition among firms and the clustering of talent here. Because they are focused on reducing expenses as much as possible, I think their focus was on how much they could get away with lowering their employee's base salaries and commissions, not where the best access to talent would be (and then compete with Wells, Barrings, TIAA, etc...). If they cared about talent... they wouldn't be leaving the most important city in finance in the world for Nashville.

For example, median salary Portfolio Manager: 
New York: $132,000
Charlotte: $92,000
Nashville: $83,000

Senior Financial Analyst:
New York: $91,000
Charlotte: $80,000
Nashville: $75,500

"First quarter adjusted operating expenses of $547 were up 15% from the first quarter of 2017, driven by higher employee compensation and benefits and promotion and servicing expenses."

 

Edited May 1, 2018 by CLT2014

[Cadi40]

Nashville can have AB, Charlotte has a lot going for it and I don't think this is a major economic loss. In a few days I'll come back onto this forum and read that a company is expanding here adding 100-300 jobs or so. 

[Scribe]

24 minutes ago, Cadi40 said:

Charlotte is a much better city for a company like AB

 

4 minutes ago, Cadi40 said:

Nashville can have AB, Charlotte has a lot going for it and I don't think this is a major economic loss.

will you please make up your mind?

[KJHburg]

Here is the Business Journal story about Alliance Bernstein and I think @CLT2014 analysis of pay is right on.   AB is not doing well FYI.  https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2018/05/01/reports-new-york-investment-firm-selects-nashville.html?ana=e_clt_bn_breakingnews&u=oAaDx%2B74FoP4qOJ%2By4AU6dhJPpc&t=1525210957&j=81339551

Yet our big banks keep quieting expanding here and taking more office space.  

[atlrvr]

I think what should be noted is 2 things:

1) the investment jobs are staying in NYC, which are the highest paying jobs

2) Charlotte pays ALMOST New York wages for banking and asset manager jobs.  If cost cutting is the primary concern, and jobs being relocated are general corporate and not financial services specific, then that makes Charlotte less competitive.

That said, i'm very disappointed that we are losing these, as it's still very complimentary to the financial concentration we have, and it reduces to 0 the chance we get the investment jobs here in the future, which pay $300k+ on average.

[KJHburg]

In other Nashville news the early results are 2 to 1 AGAINST their transit plan that including light rail and bus rapid transit.  Just interesting I guess it did not matter to a firm like Alliance Bernstein coming from the most expansive transit system in the country (New York). 

Edited May 2, 2018 by KJHburg

[Dale]

8 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

In other Nashville news the early results are 2 to 1 AGAINST their transit plan that including light rail and bus rapid transit.  Just interesting guess it did not matter to a firm like Alliance Bernstein coming from the most expansive transit system in the country (New York). 

Young, ambitious, hip adults are stampeding to cities that are heavily car-dependent, choked with traffic and without significant rail transit. It's almost like they don't care about light rail.

[Guest]

In other Nashville news the early results are 2 to 1 AGAINST their transit plan that including light rail and bus rapid transit.  Just interesting I guess it did not matter to a firm like Alliance Bernstein coming from the most expansive transit system in the country (New York). 

As a nyc resident with family in Nashville, good luck getting a nice cheap flight there. It’s impossible.


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[Richhamleigh, DC]

15 minutes ago, Dale said:

Young, ambitious, hip adults are stampeding to cities that are heavily car-dependent, choked with traffic and without significant rail transit. It's almost like they don't care about light rail.

Really?  Where?

[Guest]

Really?  Where?

Austin, Nashville...


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[Richhamleigh, DC]

1 minute ago, ricky_davis_fan_21 said:

Austin, Nashville...


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I figured those were the two cities he was referring to, plus Raleigh-Durham but it doesn't make it a stampede, when Boston, DC, Seattle, Minneapolis, Denver, NYC metro, and even Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, and LA are as well.

[Dale]

11 minutes ago, Phillydog said:

I figured those were the two cities he was referring to, plus Raleigh-Durham but it doesn't make it a stampede, when Boston, DC, Seattle, Minneapolis, Denver, NYC metro, and even Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, and LA are as well.

Since you mentioned it, they're stampeding to RDU as well.

[cltbwimob]

^^^

They are also stampeding to cities that have or are building large and comprehensive transit systems-Denver, Portland, Seattle, SLC, Washington DC.  To suggest that because they are stampeding to places like Nashville, Austin, and RDU, that they don't care about light rail  is to draw a spurious correlation.

[Dale]

3 minutes ago, cltbwimob said:

^^^

They are also stampeding to cities that have or are building large and comprehensive transit systems-Denver, Portland, Seattle, SLC, Washington DC.  To suggest that because they are stampeding to places like Nashville, Austin, and RDU, that they don't care about light rail  is to draw a spurious correlation.

By your logic, they are moving to cities with comprehensive transit (because comprehensive transit) even though they tend to prefer cities without comprehensive transit (see: Charlotte, Nashville, Austin, Tampa).

My surmise is that it has more to do with opportunity than transit. In fact, mobility was down the list on factors that led Alliance Bernstein to choose Nashville.

 

 

[15895]

Not sure why people have been using Nashville as a benchmark lately. We can’t win everything. Nashville is different than CLT and their growth really isn’t any more or any more impressive than Charlottes, IMO. It’s just another city added to the list of booming towns. 

[KJHburg]

Here are my thoughts: saw on FoxBusiness this morning talking about and TN's lack of personal income tax may have been a big attraction there. That was mentioned as well as overall lower cost of living.  And if you think about lower salaries and no personal income tax that might an attraction to NY workforce but maybe not.  Anywho you can't win them all.  I would rather be sitting here in Charlotte with our close to 20 miles of light rail and CLT airport and our towers and big employers than in Nashville.  I like Nashville but I love Charlotte! 

Do you realize BOAT at Legacy would be taller than anything in Nashville?  In fact their tallest building would be in 5th place here. 

 

[Commoner]

This is a real disappointment.  If you think about the end of the 20th century and the first few years of the 21st century, that's when this city's leadership approached opportunities like this with a refusal to lose, and fought with an underdog mentality, taking absolutely nothing for granted.  That leadership (business, civic and social) took nothing for granted and absolutely would have connected something like this to Charlotte's future economic growth.  Barings fell in our lap.  This was a must-have, if you understand that the high paying jobs that used to exist at true banks have left the banking system (for a decade now) and are moving into alternative asset management.  Trillions of dollars over the course of this generation's watch are moving into the hands of professional asset management firms like AB.  Charlotte happens to have a unique, opportunistic ecosystem to nurture this industry.  We already punch way above our weight in this growing, extraordinarily visible (to the rest of the world) and lucrative industry.  The end of this decade should {have been}{be} a "big bang" of sorts - much like the mid-1990s was.  

Charlotte will grow and will be successful, and 80% of the city will never have a clue what AB is or does, but you could say the same thing about broker dealer activities or interstate banking in 1989.  

I'm quite disappointed in the individuals who pursued this opportunity for not bringing to bear every resource and angle that was in play.  I am absolutely sure that they did not.  The prior leaders wouldn't have let this slip past.  

[cltbwimob]

17 minutes ago, Dale said:

By your logic, they are moving to cities with comprehensive transit (because comprehensive transit) even though they tend to prefer cities without comprehensive transit (see: Charlotte, Nashville, Austin, Tampa).

My surmise is that it has more to do with opportunity than transit. In fact, mobility was down the list on factors that led Alliance Bernstein to choose Nashville.

 

 

You stated that people moving to cities without good transit indicates that perhaps they don't care about light rail.  My post was simply the counterfactual.  You cherry pick a few cities and say that young hip people moving to those cities implies that they don't care about transit. I cherry pick a few cities and say that the same demographic stampeding to my list suggests that they do care about transit.  Both are arguments borne out of spurious correlation and cherry picked data points.  The only difference is that I took you own logic and flipped the script on purpose just to show how your argument was invalid.  But what you have suggested is my logic is not my logic at all.

As for your second paragraph.  I do agree that it's more about opportunity than transit.  But that was not your initial argument, or at least it wasn't clear that it was which is why I provided a counterpoint.

[CarolinaDaydreamin]

44 minutes ago, KJHburg said:

Here are my thoughts: saw on FoxBusiness this morning talking about and TN's lack of personal income tax may have been a big attraction there. That was mentioned as well as overall lower cost of living.  And if you think about lower salaries and no personal income tax that might an attraction to NY workforce but maybe not.  Anywho you can't win them all.  I would rather be sitting here in Charlotte with our close to 20 miles of light rail and CLT airport and our towers and big employers than in Nashville.  I like Nashville but I love Charlotte! 

Do you realize BOAT at Legacy would be taller than anything in Nashville?  In fact their tallest building would be in 5th place here. 

 

 

Just as relevant is state corporate tax which is substantially lower here. (No personal income tax has to be paid for from something) Its also not like TN is substantially cheaper than NC overall, so the personal income tax benefit of Tennessee is somewhat blown out of proportion.