PANAMA CITY — In the competitive world of economic development, cooperation between states is rare.
But “coopetition” is the driving force behind the Tri-State Megasite Alliance, a 10-county effort in North Florida and South Alabama to lure a major economic development project to Campbellton, a small town in northern Jackson County.
“For the other counties to say ‘we support this site in one county’ is really a show of what we call coopetition,” said Neal Wade, Bay County Economic Development Alliance director and project co-chair. “It allows both states to go after an automotive project for less than if you went after it by yourself.”
Now two years into the project, the alliance has identified a 2,200-acre site near U.S. 231 in Campbellton with the right ingredients to house an auto manufacturing plant, the targeted industry for the space.
Wade said the alliance will officially roll out the project for elected officials this October, and present results from a study exploring the project’s feasibility and the economic footprint a major manufacturing facility would leave on the area.
“We’ve been working on this for two years as economic developers, but we’ve never involved or brought in the elected officials from all of the counties to reveal ... our strategy,” said Wade, adding that the project has the potential to boost the entire region’s economy. “It’s that ripple effect, but you’ve got to focus on one strategic location, and Jackson County ... fit the bill.”
The Jackson County Development Council has an option to purchase the property, currently owned by a timber company.
David Melvin, president of Melvin Engineering in Marianna, said finding the right spot, with easy access to both a four-lane highway and railway, was not an easy task.
“It’s a challenge to find a site like that with all those features,” said Melvin, who has worked on other Jackson County economic development projects, including the Family Dollar distribution center and Green Circle Bio Energy mill. “We felt like to have the cooperation with Alabama we needed to be as close to the Alabama line as possible.”
The alliance’s preliminary project vision centers around developing a workforce training center on the Alabama side, which is already home to several assembly plants and a successful automotive training program.
“We’re trying to do it in a real partnership where part of the project itself would be handled in Alabama and the manufacturing part could be on the Florida side,” Melvin said.
Melvin cited thousands of lost jobs North Florida and South Alabama areas over the last several years, prompting a push for economic revitalization.
“I think everybody recognizes that we need to try to bring those manufacturing jobs back for a solid economic base,” Melvin said. “Florida has woken up to that need, going through the recession and all, that we can’t depend on those service area type jobs. We need to diversify the economy as much as possible.”
Following the rollout this fall, Wade said the next step would be heavily marketing the site to automotive companies seeking to expand.
In today’s economy, however, competition for projects has become a global game. Wade cited the growing automotive industry in Mexico as alluring for many companies due to cheaper labor.
“Companies, to get involved in an incentive package, they’re going to say, show me why, show me the numbers,” Wade said.
If the alliance can reel in an auto manufacturer, the benefits would be seen across the region and into Bay County, with potential traffic boosts at Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport and Port Panama City, and the opportunity for the area to compete for suppliers.
“We need that domino, we need that big mega-project that sends out a signal that this is a place that is a diverse economy, it’s not just a tourism economy,” Wade said. “This would do that.”