Evanoff: OK, we never landed Amazon's $150,000 jobs. What do we do now? Plan.

• 'We’re putting together a game plan. I think that game plan happens prior to year’s end.' Al Bright says
• 'We need to look again at what we are doing and double our efforts,' says banker Harold Byrd
• 'The joint venture created between EDGE, the chamber and the city with respect to economic development puts us all on one page now,' Al Bright says

Here in Memphis we like to think we run hard.

Thing is, we don’t seem to catch up.

We didn’t get the Toyota-Mazda car plant. It went to Huntsville, Alabama.

We didn’t get the Hankook tire plant. It went to Clarksville outside Nashville.

And we never got those high-pay office jobs.

Office jobs? Yes, Amazon’s.

Just the other day, Amazon committed 5,000 jobs paying $150,000 per year on average  for Nashville.

This sounded exactly like the kind of economic boom Memphis needs but missed out on again.

So I called Al Bright Jr., who thinks a lot about economic development, and asked the obvious question.

Code names

Project Gardendale.

That’s what they called it in Nashville.

It was a code name. Folks in the know used it to refer to Amazon’s special 5,000-jobs office project. Gov. Bill Haslam knew all about it.

We didn’t have a code name in Memphis.

We didn’t know we needed one.

We didn’t know there was a special project.

If we are to ever land a Toyota, Hankook or Amazon, EDGE would lead the way. But EDGE was out of the loop on Amazon.

That's why I phoned Bright.

EDGE

Al Bright is a Memphian who serves as chairman of EDGE, the city-county government agency responsible for economic development.

Since spring, Richard Smith, chairman of the Greater Memphis Chamber, has hammered on the agency.

He claims EDGE swings and often misses.

Smith and Memphis City Council Chairman Berlin Boyd touched off a long-running EDGE reform discussion among Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, members of the Shelby County Commission and Memphis City Council, and various civic leaders including real estate developer Ron Belz.

Understandably, Bright himself has borne some of the EDGE criticism.

On Wednesday, I phoned him.

The Seattle company had picked Nashville and there wasn't anything Memphis could do. Sill I asked the question. Is there a lesson to be learned in Amazon ignoring Memphis for office work?  

“I don’t know if it’s a lesson learned,” Bright said.

Memphis unity

Bright is smart, articulate and candid. He makes a living as an attorney, handling mergers, securities and sales agreements. He sounds not at all defensive about EDGE.

He pointed out the EDGE reform talk spread beyond the agency's duties. The talk touched on how the leadership of Memphis and the region can unite for a common cause of creating jobs.

 “The joint venture created between EDGE, the chamber and the city with respect to economic development puts us all on one page now,” Bright said. “From our standpoint we’re now laser-focused together.’’

Memphis proper lacks open land able to accommodate big new plants and office parks. Cities in the region such as Collierville, Millington and Southaven have available sites. But skilled workers are scarce throughout the region of 1.34 million people.

“The fact of the matter is we have to have people to do this, to work in the new jobs, but we have a shortage of workers. And in the city we don’t have the sites ready,’’ Bright said. “What I think that’s key is the community is now coming together to figure out how to work together and to make things better.’’

More:Initial plan for EDGE reform focuses on workforce, incentives and chamber

'On the same team'

No one has settled on a sure worker training plan, though Greater Memphis Chamber officials have reached out to their counterparts in Southaven, the DeSoto County Council. Industrial vocational classes taught at Northwest Mississippi Community College in Southaven are considered exemplary.

And no one is quite sure what to do about the land shortage. With Memphis hedged in on available land, the outlying cities near and along the Interstate 269 corridor stand out. The new highway has opened up thousands of acres for potential development.

Memphis officials have contacted the Shelby County Chamber Alliance, a recently formed group that represents chambers in Arlington, Bartlett, Collierville, Germantown, Lakeland and Millington.

“I think I salute Nashville for gaining Amazon,” said Bank of Bartlett Vice Chairman Harold Byrd, head of the chamber alliance. “It’s a great compliment to them and as my mother would say, a feather in their cap. I think what it shows for us is we have made a lot of great progress in Shelby County, but we need to look again at what we are doing and double our efforts. Even if it means a project goes outside Bartlett, it’s good for all of us. We’re all on the same team.’’

When I read this, what I read between the lines is Memphis is on the same team and should work hard to get projects to land in Bartlett, Collierville or anywhere else in the region a company wants to locate.

Leadership

Memphis has always had capable leaders. What it hasn’t had is a common vision bringing the leaders together in a way that could quiet down the family squabbles.

That’s why Nashville’s Project Gardendale looked so stark from the standpoint of Memphis.

Here was Gov. Bill Haslam and Nashville’s officials secretly cobbling together a $100 million incentive package for Amazon. And here was Memphis' leadership, talking about how to achieve economic development in a region starved for good-paying jobs.

Bright said he is confident. He singled out Richard Smith, Jim Strickland, Berlin Boyd, City Councilman Reid Hedgepeth, County Commissioner Van Turner and several other elected leaders. Bright said they are united like never before on the goal of economic progress.

What remains is to bring together an actual economic development plan.

“We have the right people at the right place at the right time to make things work,” Bright said. “We’re putting together a game plan. I think that game plan happens prior to year’s end.”

Just maybe, if all this comes together, Memphis can run hard and catch up.

Ted Evanoff, business columnist of The Commercial Appeal, can be reached at evanoff@commercialappeal.com and (901) 529-2292.