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How Economic Developers Evaluate Project Impacts - Site Selection Magazine - March 2001Page 4 of 6 tended to value the community advantages that are more illusive to 611ro1119q►raut Il towwobl000stor Moo • define and abstract in nature. Such highly rated community Ruswisietame MN advantages as quality of life, quality workforce,work ethic and good u. ClituraMiteibmittaii schools are hard quantify. On the other hand,coor rpate reaLestate executives were more concrete in defining community characteristics and corporate cost factors deemed "reasonable"that could be objectively compared between communities. What do the differences in the two location advantages list mean?Municipal economic development program administrators value and market what they have within their respective communities. They will of course respond to corporate �' f':i' '1.1110 1'4 1a11 11'r' 1;'1 E III' 111'.t#I:WI ieut Mir I ,x [WO Iflr Ifin� requests for information on the physical characteristics of sites, site [ nn:r,nl§itvt:tlltSf' I, .,r��r. t",E Ir°�I �t ownership, site costs and preparation requirements as well as local community, utility and transportation matters. However,economic I< ask*deb n development practitioners lack the ability to control their community's 2 021112Y Good fundamental economic factors,yet they were expected by their ' t * superiors and citizens to produce development results.Accordingly, a wardpactigion Koss CI economic development officials value and market their community's R regtonioneritols 4t benefits. The economic development administrator cannot make up r` Mon ot IL Public Wow 4 for their community's shortcomings but they can improve their a Cooter harry at community's image b marketin_ their communi advanta.tes a d 1d Gist""tt" '0 11• Ream**ego$ 2 target marketing to corporations. 12. how*to housing 3 13. Envirsamant quality 28 S I . Low poor sow 29 19.Culwrsl ana ldst 29 It pinirte 2t 17.1M preforms 24 Measures of Development Costs and Benefits )i. I Economic development administrators were asked how frequently Usc of Buletit II iei 1111:,1:- they used cost benefit and impact analysis techniques to evaluate At "I s i , S r I;Ifi i t I } 01'["1111 projects. Table 7 shows the degree to which their respective agency or GII ',if 1 14k, tMhe �, department performed a cost benefit or impact analysis study on %OWpow 7.g projects, 213 Surprisingly,about 30 percent of the economic development somatimes program administrators did not use or rarely used any type of cost 26.1 Mom 172 benefit or impact analysis studies to measure and evaluate projects. .tend no rami 14:10 duo,3o vuelon From a corporate real estate perspective,this shows both the lack of sophistication and disinterest in understanding corporate location,retention issues and site selection decision making issues on the part of that group. With the above breakdown in mind, it is insightful to consider the tools and methods employed by the two-thirds of economic development administrators who did use some io type of cost benefit or impact analysis study to evaluate projects. ;ht it'w f t I s( . mal Methods Mn Survey respondents were asked to rank seventeen types of analytical r" ""1° f" r (ISL it IX E I I u;I t:l!IIIiI?Ililit'' fs1llJrjGtS ut tools and methods that could be used to evaluate project impacts. E! !writ P r!1.1 N. http://www.siteselection.com/issues/2001/mar/p146/ 4/5/01