Can Montgomery County position itself as the next San Francisco or Cambridge, Massachusetts?
That was the question posed by Jim Brady, vice president of finance for Medimmune, to elected state representatives and county leaders Thursday morning.
The Gaithersburg-based Medimmune, which was sold to AstraZeneca in 2007 for $15.6 billion, is a major player in the county’s biotechnology industry.
Brady said the company sees an opportunity for the county to expand its biotech sector by leveraging local resources like the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration. He said those federal centers attract companies, but the county needs to do more to attract young, talented workers to make the area even more enticing for businesses.
“We’re fighting to get talent to move to Montgomery County,” Brady said during a meeting with the county’s General Assembly delegation, County Council members and County Executive Ike Leggett at the Silver Spring Library. “We need to attract future scientists to cure diseases, but we can’t do it ourselves.”
He said Medimmune wants the county to be more competitive with San Francisco and Cambridge, areas that he said, “spawn employment, [Venture Capital] money and investment” and are also “very cool.”
“We do rank high in attracting millennials,” Bob Buchanan, the chair of the newly-formed Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation, said. “But will they stay here when they are confronted with traffic issues and housing affordability issues?”
He said economic growth in the county starts with transportation. On that front, Buchanan said, no one is in charge.
“We can’t go to anyone and get anything fixed,” Buchanan said.
Agencies that handle major transportation projects in the county range from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which runs bus services and Metro, to the Maryland Transit Administration, which is guiding the Purple Line project, to the State Highway Administration, which manages state roads.
A regional transportation authority, separate from WMATA, that could combine resources and plans for fixing traffic issues was one idea that was mentioned.
County Council member Marc Elrich noted that the county and state has failed to build any bus rapid transit (BRT) lines despite years of discussions about them. Meanwhile, across the river, BRT lines are being constructed in Alexandria and elsewhere thanks to a streamlined approach by Virginia, Elrich said.
He added that the burden in the county to raise funds for transportation projects should be placed on commercial properties, as it is in Virginia.
“If you want to compete, then compete,” Elrich said. “Accept the burden and raise the money to do it. We have the ability, but the question is do we have the will?”
Leggett attempted to form an Independent Transit Authority in the county to build bus rapid transit (BRT) lines earlier this year. However, a strong critical response from residents over the possibility of a new tax to fund the authority ultimately led the county executive to withdraw the plan in November. Instead, he’s now pursuing construction of BRT lines without the authority.
Other officials said more has to be done to market the area.
“At the end of the day, we all live next to the center of the free world, that’s what we have over the rest of the country,” said County Council President Nancy Floreen. She said the county needs to sell itself by touting its educated workforce and proximity to the federal government.
Philip Schiff, the CEO of the Tech Council of Maryland, said the council is making in-roads in delivering the message about what makes Montgomery County attractive—from its high-ranking schools to growing technology industry.
“We need to tell the rest of the world that we are as cool as San Francisco,” Schiff said.
”We have advantages,” Brady, the biotech executive, said. “We just need to talk about them more.”
Participants also discussed the county’s business priorities heading into the 2016 General Assembly session, which starts in January.
Those include expanding grant and tax credits available to emerging businesses, supporting the governor’s new Regulatory Reform Commission’s recommendations to expedite the permitting and licensing process in the state, and increased funding for public transit projects.
Whether the Montgomery County delegation will be able to bring home additional funds is an open question, given that Republican Gov. Larry Hogan is focused on cutting spending in the state. And that question was one Del. David Moon (D-District 20) raised at the meeting.
“I keep hearing proposals that cost money,” Moon said. “But later this month we’re probably going to hear from a different set of business leaders who recommend we reduce [taxes] on their behalf.”
