Corridor Stays In Middle Of Huge Combined Market

Buried deep on page 103 of the Office of Management and Budget's OMB Bulletin 03-04 on June 6 was one of the biggest things that didn't happen for economic development officials in the corridor, and they were relieved.

There, in the long list of "combined statistical areas," was the Washington-Baltimore-Northern Virginia area, a designation Howard and Anne Arundel County officials were afraid of losing after the latest census, leaving them in a marketing no-man's-land when site selection professionals crunched the numbers to locate new offices and plants.

"The reason we were so involved in Howard County and Anne Arundel County," explained Dick Story of the Howard County Economic Development Authority was "we would be on the periphery of one or both" metropolitan statistical areas if the 10-year-old designation were lost. But combined, "we're at the center of that market," Story said, even though both cities see the corridor counties as "outside the beltway."

"Statistically aligned, the area is the fourth largest and wealthiest market in the United States," noted Neil Shpritz of the BWI Business Partnership, who helped lead the lobbying effort. "Without the designation, each metropolitan area does not even rank in the top tier."

The White House Office of Management and Budget is in charge of designating statistical areas, and the criteria, using commuting patterns, were slightly changed in 2000, casting in doubt the Washington-Baltimore designation that regional economic development organizations had fought hard to win after the 1990 census.

Dick Story began leading the charge in late 2001, making a presentation to the Big Seven jurisdictions in Maryland and then calling together 15 or 20 business organizations in the area. "We were in jeopardy of losing the designation if we didn't mount a significant effort," said Story.

Because the designation was optional under the criteria measuring cross-jurisdiction commuting, OMB officials last fall wrote to the congressional delegations in the two states asking them to weigh in on the matter. But then anthrax attacks hit Capitol Hill, keeping most senators and their staff out of their offices for weeks, and by spring, OMB hadn't heard from any senators or representatives, Shpritz said.

He intensified his lobbying effort and eventually got both Maryland senators and its eight congressmen to sign a letter asking for the continued designation. Still OMB hadn't heard from Virginia, but then Paul Farragut, executive director of the Baltimore Metropolitan Council (and a former member of the Howard County Council), "was effective in getting a letter from Sen. John Warner," supporting the continued designation, said Story.

But when OMB actually put out the statistical designations in the 144-page list, the low-key move went unnoticed for nearly two weeks until Shpritz contacted Sen. Barbara Mikulski's office and then announced it at a June 18 breakfast meeting. Two days later, Mikulski and Sen. Paul Sarbanes, Maryland senior senator, put out a press release announcing the decision.

"This will be a shot in the arm in maintaining our competitiveness for federal dollars for critically needed programs," said Sarbanes. But the two Baltimore Democrats initially got the name of the Combined Statistical Area slightly wrong. They said the region had kept the "Baltimore-Washington" combined designation, though it is actually Washington-Baltimore-Northern Virginia.

Which city's name would come first was a significant bone of contention when the areas were consolidated a decade ago, with marketers insisting that Washington, an international capital even though a smaller core city, should go first, while Baltimore businesses and officials feared a continued loss of status. With population losses, Baltimore, with 635,000 people, is now only about 11% larger than the District of Columbia, with 571,000, and both are surrounded by suburban counties with much larger populations.