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News Record Local Economys A Survivor In Time Of Troubles, Officials Declare By Dan Wright
BRIDGEWATER - Harrisonburg and Rockingham County are surviving the housing market decline, rising gas prices and slumping retail sales, issues that have rocked the nation's economy. But the local economy has taken some hits. These are just two of the highlights of a report given Wednesday by Harrisonburg Director of Economic Development Brian Shull and Rockingham County Director of Community Development William Vaughn. The city and county have a diverse but steady economy, which allows it to survive the national trends, Vaughn said. "We were late getting into the [economic] downturn and we pull out of it quicker," Vaughn said. "We don't see grand increases in standard of living, but we also don't see massive layoffs." The Milken Institute, an economic think tank, ranked the Harrisonburg metropolitan statistical area, which includes Rockingham County, as the top-performing metro in 2007. Inc. magazine ranked Harrisonburg the 50th-best metro for doing business. Housing Home sales declined 50 percent over a three-year period, with 1,077 homes in the city and county sold in 2007, Vaughn said. Sixty-two percent of those sales were in the city, with the remaining 38 percent in the county, he added. Building permits for new homes in the city and county, which peaked in 2005 at 1,318, dropped 23 percent in 2006, then rebounded to 1,306 last year. But the housing industry has yet to recover, said Devon Anders, president of the InterChange Group Inc., which along with Nielsen Builders, sponsored the breakfast. "The credit crunch is not over yet," Anders said. "And it's going to take some time to build consumer confidence." Metro residential investments were $168 million last year, based on estimated values of building permits. While that's up 1.4 percent from 2006, it's a 2.8 percent decline since 2005. Retail City and county retailers attract consumers from a 30-mile radius, which includes about 250,000 people, Shull said. Preliminary figures from the Department of Taxation indicate that retailers rang up $1.7 billion in sales in 2007, up 6.3 percent from 2006. The city accounted for about $1.2 billion of last year's sales, while $500 million came from the county. Shoppers find a mix of local specialty shops, national chains and big box retail stores, Shull added. But the city is running out of retail space and development will have go vertical. Urban Exchange, the mixed-use development under way at the former Eastern Auto/Joe Bowman Chevrolet lot on East Market Street, will have four floors of retail space along with 200 residential units. Tourism generated $226.6 million in 2006, an increase of 14.2 percent over the previous year, according to the Virginia Tourism Corp. Massanutten resort and Shenandoah National Park get the bulk of tourists, Shull said. "But most of the hotels and restaurants are in the city," he added. "And that's where a lot of the expenditures are." Industry The metro's industrial growth is visible in expansions at Merck & Co. Inc., Coors Shenandoah Brewery, Ariake USA and Rosetta Stone, Shull said. A report from the Virginia Jobs Investment Program projects capital investment of $82.4 million and job growth of 1,704 for the metro in fiscal 2008. Five-year job growth in the city and county are above the national average, with 1,500 new jobs added last year, the Virginia Employment Commission said. Major developments include SRI International's drug research facility, Criticon's secure data storage center, and SI International's patent and trademark contract with the federal government, Shull added. Industrial development took up part of the slack from residential building, said Tony Wilt, president and general manager of Superior Concrete Inc. "We were able to fall back on commercial and institutional building," Wilt said. "So [Harrisonburg] didn't take as big a hit as a lot of areas." Go to www.dnronline.com for more news.
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