news-record.com

GREENSBORO — The Piedmont Triad’s economy is ready for fast growth, but its people may not be.

About 100 community leaders talked about ways to guide that growth in the coming decade in the second One Guilford symposium at Guilford College on Wednesday.

The symposium, which was sponsored by the News & Record, featured panelists discussing the airport, the furniture industry, schools and universities and their role in the Triad’s dramatically changing economy.

Less than a decade ago, the region was literally turning businesses away because it could not offer enough available workers.

But after 2000, the Triad lost 30,000 jobs, more than any other region in the country, said Don Kirkman, president of the Piedmont Triad Partnership.

The loss of jobs to other nations was the key factor.

But now, that global connection could be the key to the economy’s rebirth. The FedEx hub now being built, a vibrant transportation system and a planned business city around Piedmont Triad International Airport could be at the heart of the growth.

Described as an "aerotropolis" by John Kasarda, a UNC professor and international airport expert, the airport city could generate tens of thousands of new jobs in this region, according to a report he prepared for the partnership.

Kirkman quoted Kasarda’s words as a warning, however, when he said "Piedmont Triad local governments must work together as a single entity," or problems will crop up.

For example, corporations attracted by the airport could pit uncooperative cities against each other in an incentives bidding war. Cooperative cities, on the other hand, would work in their own interests to recruit such a company.

In the symposium’s break-out session for the airport topic, Kirkman and a variety of business and civic leaders talked further about the need for land management and planning at the airport.

Jim Morgan, a High Point business leader who is chairman of a regional committee studying airport growth, said Indianapolis is a good example of how to plan for growth attracted by a FedEx hub.

"They have a FedEx hub and they’ve done some very, very good planning," Morgan said. That includes specific rules for locating categories of businesses, he said.

The PTI hub opens in 2009, not a long time, those in the small classroom said.

"We didn’t start early enough," said Robbie Perkins, a commercial real estate executive and a candidate for Greensboro’s City Council.

When he previously served on the City Council, Perkins said that he worked on an initiative to improve the look of N.C. 68’s development and it was already too late to beautify much of the section.

And beauty is, indeed, a key attribute of good development, Kasarda said.

Picking one city or one group to lead the planning is difficult, said Guilford County Manager David McNeill.

"We’re seeing  the airport going through a transformation," he said.  "It’s just strengthening itself as the leading Triad economic engine."

Other leaders at the symposium were N.C. A&T Chancellor Stanley Battle, who talked about the challenges of joining with UNCG in building the Gateway Research Park and its potential for stimulating growth; the Guilford County Board of Education vice chairman, Amos Quick; UNCG economist Andrew Brod and Bennett College President Julianne Malveaux.

Malveaux, who was the final speaker at the event, warned the audience not to expect the benefits of growth just to trickle down to the poor people of Greensboro.

"Economic development," she said, "is not the same as economic justice."

Contact Richard M. Barron at 373-7371 or dbarron@news-record.com