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Old Posted Oct 11, 2014, 10:32 PM
jsbrook jsbrook is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Bala Cynwyd
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cro Burnham View Post
I kind of think that the kinds of companies that could be bribed to leave Philly for a Camden office park are not the kinds of companies we need to worry about much anyway.

A company that is willing to do that in many cases has a very generic employee base for whom urban amenities/lifestyle is low priority. Kind of an "Office Space" type place. Most companies of that type have already left the city for the burbs over the past 5 decades.

I think I have bought into the idea that Philadelphia is going to attract companies based on its natural draws: lifestyle, youth-appeal, transit access, diversity, etc., and needs less and less to bribe companies that covet talented employees who covet those kinds of urban traits.

Architects, lawyers, tech-geeks, new media types, creative types, etc. . . . alot of them might quit their jobs and look for new ones before they would give up their urban lifestyles and reverse commute by car to Campbell's campus on a desolate former titty bar strip.

Companies that go running to the outskirts of Camden for a few dollars probably have more of the older-model of corporate employee . . the kind of people who already drive to work in suburban office parks and actually like it. My guess is that the Camden facility would appeal more to suburban companies than urban ones . . . that Brandywine might be banking on taking advantage of a shift in the thinking of conventional suburban companies that might be considering transitioning to a more transit-oriented, less-sprawl oriented setting, but aren't ready to take the full-on plunge into the urban environment.

Increasingly, the settings of suburban office parks in almost all of South Jersey and the other less elite Philly suburbs - Lower Bucks, Central Montco, Delco - are looking pretty drab and uninspiring. Unless you are along the Main Line and Conshohocken/Plymouth Meeting, Princeton, maybe Moorestown, Doylestown, and a few other isolated spots, the suburban office setting is really pretty horrible already. Relocating to a Campbell's campus wouldn't really be a drop-off in terms of physical environment, but would have a much better regional location, especially compared to other South Jersey spots or places in Lower Bucks or Delco close to NJ.

But can you imagine companies like RJMetrics relocating there? Increasingly, it's hard to do that, with Center City getting better and better and baby-boomer Green Acres values receding further over the sunset.

In the future, it seems more likely that more competition for talent will be from lower-cost, more business friendly upstart downtowns: who knows, an Indianapolis, a Columbus, a Denver, an Austin. Cheaper, less politically stultified cities CBDs of which are beginning to emerge from 70 years of death and actually showing sparks of vitality and hipness.
All very good points. I hope you're right about all of them. I think more companies are going to want to stay in the city to as the younger generations rise into positions of power as well. It's a different relationship to the city (and a really a different city itself) than existed for my parent's generation.