Before a private corporation taking over economic development duties in Montgomery County can tackle Marriott's pending move or pitch cybersecurity firms to relocate, it must find some office space of its own.
The Montgomery County Economic Development Corp. (MCEDC), established last year to replace the county’s Department of Economic Development, is a little more than a month away from its July 1 launch date and still squarely in its build-up phase.
Bob Buchanan, the longtime developer hand-picked by County Executive Ike Leggett to chair the MCEDC board, told Bethesda Beat Monday the MCEDC board looked for Metro-accessible space in Rockville, Bethesda and other county locations and is negotiating on three potential options.
“We’re looking for a place where people visiting the county for the first time can see the energy,” Buchanan said.
He said the group could tab an interim CEO as its national search for a full-time CEO continues. The CEO search has so far attracted about 80 candidates and will be the most important decision the 11-member board makes, he said.
“The most important thing we can do is to find that person to lead us and based on that person’s strengths, bring on some staff to complement those skills,” Buchanan said. “We need to wrap that up as quickly as possible.”
Last year, Leggett said the county set up the MCEDC, essentially privatizing economic development, to be more nimble while marketing the county, attracting businesses to the county and working to retain existing businesses. The entity with a board made up mostly of people in the private sector will be financed in its first fiscal year with almost $4.2 million of county funding. It’s similar to economic development corporations in neighboring Fairfax and Prince George’s counties.
The MCEDC board has set up a website and begun initiatives to build up the county’s reputation as a hub for cybersecurity and biohealth firms.
Buchanan said he’s attended a couple of meetings county officials have had with officials from Marriott International, the Bethesda-based hotel giant that plans to move from its Fernwood Road headquarters by 2020.
Buchanan said he expects Marriott to make a decision on its next headquarters location by the end of the year. While he acknowledged many will judge the county’s economic development capabilities on Marriott’s decision, Buchanan said the company’s expected move from a suburban-style office park to a more transit-oriented location illustrates a broader challenge.
“I think the county has done an excellent job of presenting the options that Marriott has and responding to Marriott’s wanting to know more,” Buchanan said. “But also, the county’s looking at what can we do to make our big office centers better, because if it’s not Marriott saying, ‘We want to go where the future workforce is going to be attracted to work,’ it’s going to be another company. Yours truly is an office park developer. I regret to say those office parks are either functionally or geographically obsolete.”
Buchanan said once the board hires a CEO, that person will then move to build the MCEDC’s staff, which could grow to as many as 12 people by the end of the year with the ultimate goal of 18 employees in the next two years.
The MCEDC will likely be collocated with the county’s tourism office and WorkSource Montgomery, an employment and recruitment service also funded by the county.
Other MCEDC board members include Robby Brewer, a prominent land-use attorney at the Bethesda-based firm Lerch, Early & Brewer; Ola Sage, CEO of Silver Spring-based cybersecurity firm CyberRx; and Sanjay Rai, senior vice president for academic affairs at Montgomery College.
