By Eric Gray | The City of Long Beach is the 36th largest city in the United States. According to the US Census Bureau, as of 2012, our most recent estimated population is 462,257 residents. This, by comparison, is larger than the populations of both Atlanta, Georgia at 443,775 people and Miami, Florida at 413,892 people. Conversely, Long Beach’s unemployment rate according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as of August 2013 is estimated at 11.2 %, higher than the national and state average.   

For a city our size with a high population and unemployment rate, it is troubling to me that we currently do not have an Economic Development Department. An Economic Development Department in my view could help ease unemployment, spur job growth, and revitalize neighborhoods while at the same time create a return on investment for our city through sales tax revenues and increased economic activity. This department could start off lean with a small but effective staff and grow as needed, leveraging Long Beach’s current Economic Development Commission, an official city commission that currently sits inactive. 

Here are a few roles I believe an Economic Development Department could play: 

  • Identify high growth industries that the City of Long Beach could benefit from such as technology, creative fields, the green economy, and healthcare.
  • Implement effective strategies and incentives to recruit organizations of all sizes from these industries to relocate to the City of Long Beach.
  • Act as a liaison between City Government and our invaluable Business Improvement Districts and Business Community Associations.
  • Form a strong non-political partnership with the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce that involves working towards mutual goals to create a more business friendly city on common ground.
  • Create a Music Economic Development Division to help foster our local music scene.
  • Look for ways to continue activating our waterfront with new recreational activities residents could enjoy.   

Long Beach, in my view, has many assets that make our city a desirable place for start-ups and more established organizations. We are the largest coastal city situated on the Pacific Ocean between Los Angeles and San Diego. Our weather boasts a Mediterranean climate with a high number of sunny days and relatively low precipitation. We are home to the Queen Mary, a beautiful Downtown skyline, historic neighborhoods, weekly farmers markets, mass transit, evolving small business corridors, numerous events, parks and the waterfront. According to walkscore.com, Long Beach is the 11th most walkable large city in the United States, an asset that a majority of southern California cities do not have. According to bicycling.com, we are the 19th most bike friendly city in the United States with a growing bike infrastructure and bike economy. Our restaurants, craft beer, and wine bars continue to receive notable recognition from a wide variety of sources for the caliber of their establishments. In addition, we have a high number of artists and musicians residing and performing locally, adding to the city’s cultural fabric. 

It is important to note that Long Beach for many years has had an Economic Development Bureau Manager whose role and department were embedded and shuffled around through other departments over time. I had the fortunate opportunity to interview our former Economic Development Bureau Manager, Robert M. Swayze, with a series of questions I felt important for the city at large to better understand why Economic Development is so crucial to a city. Here is what he had to say:

When did you serve as Economic Development Bureau Manager?

Robert Swayze: I started in February 2005 and left in August 2011. I actually closed the books on my Long Beach position on a Friday afternoon and started my next position with the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC) the following Monday.

Why do you think an Economic Development Department benefits a city?

We’ve undergone an enormous economic restructuring over the past 25 years – nationally, regionally and locally. For example, in 1990 there were over 813,400 manufacturing jobs in Los Angeles County; now, there are less than 355,000. Job formation in an information- and technology-driven economy has changed. Facebook has a market cap of over $171 billion – but has less than 6,500 employees.  Compare that to a firm that Long Beach is familiar with: Boeing. Boeing is a major multinational, with a market cap of $95.3 billion – and 168,000 employees. We operate in a rapidly changing world.

In this environment, economic development is crucial for any jurisdiction. It will never be a city’s core function – the core functions of municipal governments have a “public” as part of their name: public safety, public works, public libraries, public parks. But a healthy economy is crucial to the well being of any city. In today’s very competitive environment, cities need to invest in economic development.

What duties did you perform as an Economic Development Officer?

The duties evolved. When I started with Long Beach, the Economic Development Bureau was part of the Community Development Department, which also included housing, redevelopment and neighborhood services. Later, Community Development was reorganized. Originally, we were responsible for business assistance, enterprise zone, business attraction and retention, marketing, commercial and industrial lending and special projects. We added cultural affairs – I believe in 2008. The portfolio narrowed as Community Development was restructured and staffing for the Economic Development Bureau was reduced. When I left, the Bureau’s primary responsibility was the Enterprise Zone.

What accomplishments did you achieve while on staff?

The major ones? C-17 Red Team, reauthorization of the Enterprise Zone, retaining our auto dealers, attracting new retail, encouraging new business improvement districts and pushing arts and culture as an economic driver.

C-17 Red Team: About a month after I started, a representative from the federal Department of Commerce came to my office and announced they were conducting a study to analyze the economic impact when the Boeing C-17 line closed down in 2006. It was a stop-the-presses moment. Extending the C-17 line immediately became our most important economic development project. Actually, it was recognized as the single most important business retention project for the entire state. We formed the C-17 Red Team and worked closely with Boeing to garner support to extend the production. We needed to generate a groundswell of both local and regional support so we came up with the C-17 flyover at the Long Beach Grand Prix and having the City declare a C-17 Day. We secured support from various Councils of Government in LA County, the City of Los Angeles, the County Board of Supervisors and various economic development organizations.  We helped make the case – the Red Team received national play in the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post–and the program and thousands of jobs were saved till this year.

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Enterprise Zone: Long Beach’s Enterprise Zone was set to expire in 2007. The City had been working on a legislative fix to extend the zone for 2 years. I said no, we need to go for a full 15-year extension, and we did. And we got it. We also doubled the number of hiring vouchers issued each year. What was the impact? Over $65 million a year in tax credits to Long Beach businesses.

Auto Dealers: We didn’t lose a single auto dealer to a neighboring city while I was manager of the Bureau. Long Beach had been a poaching ground for other cities for years. Actually, a number of dealerships expanded or remodeled – and that was during a really difficult time for dealerships.

Retail: For the last several decades, most California cities focused their economic development efforts almost entirely on retail.  I always felt that was a mistake – retail follows income, so the key for more retail is job creation and retention. But retail was still part of the mix.  We helped the new Target in North Long Beach sort out their parking issues and worked to bring in other retailers, such as Best Buy. I remember driving up to Glendale to structure a loan with the developer, and that loan structure became the basis of the RDA deal to bring Marshall’s to that long closed Roberts Department store in Bixby Knolls.

BIDS: We viewed Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) as a crucial economic development tool. In an era of reduced resources, having an effective BID is crucial for strengthening neighborhoods. Fourth Street and East Anaheim came on line during my term, and work was underway for others. 

Arts and Culture: I remember giving a presentation in late 2007 to senior management at City Hall about the importance of arts and culture for economic development and how it can transform communities. I used as an example Highland Park, a relatively low-income neighborhood in Los Angeles. I’m not sure they entirely got it, but they agreed to make cultural affairs apart of our portfolio. Oh, and Highland Park? It was one of the five hottest real estate areas in the entire nation in 2013 – driven by arts.

What projects were you working on at the time of departure that you would have liked to see completed?

I would say two projects I started working on from my first day in Long Beach: better connecting LBCC and CSULB to the city and growing technology development. Long Beach has terrific assets – but some have never been fully leveraged. CSULB and LBCC are enormous assets – having a university and community college in the same city is something other jurisdictions would die for. Every year more than 8,000 students graduate from CSULB – that’s an enormous advantage in today’s economy that values education and technical ability. So better linkages between these institutions and the city was always a goal. At the County I developed one of California’s largest high tech incubators/accelerators – the Business Technology Center. We also created the nation’s first technology equity fund managed by a County agency. I thought jump starting new tech development in Long Beach was a natural – and still do. 

Why did you leave Long Beach?

I was recruited by the LAEDC to join them as Senior Vice President for Economic Development. I loved working for Long Beach, but we live in South Pasadena, and the commute – an hour in the morning and 90 minutes at night – was wearing a bit. A position twenty minutes from home was very attractive – and I had worked on many projects with the LAEDC since 1991, so it was a very familiar organization to me. 

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What has your career path been since working at the City of Long Beach?

I served as Senior Vice President for Economic Development for the LAEDC in 2010 and 2011. In 2012 a number of colleagues with whom I had worked for years on various economic development and redevelopment projects decided to form a firm that would offer in-depth experience and expertise in all areas of economic development to jurisdictions, agencies and private sector firms. We could see that both redevelopment and the enterprise zone programs were coming to an end, and knew we could offer alternatives. We formed Economic Development Results, LLC. In fact, our offices are in the same high technology incubator I developed for the County.

What advice could you give to the City of Long Beach?

Long Beach is a great, great city. I loved working there. I loved the diversity, the passion, the fact that it’s a city of 500,000 and still seems like a small town. It has a tremendous portfolio of assets. In Southern California! On the ocean! One the two biggest ports in the nation!  Everyone’s favorite airport! Three museums, a symphony, an opera, a ballet – and a nationally recognized aquarium! It is sophisticated and down to earth; it embraces the new and treasures its past. Perhaps it’s difficult to be the beta city in a region – but to me, that was an opportunity. I once used a phrase that I borrowed from ancient history – Long Beach doesn’t have to be Rome; it can be Athens.

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In the past several years Long Beach, under the leadership of Mayor Bob Foster and City Management, has made many positive cultural shifts in relation to economic development, making it easier for businesses to open in our city. The city has centralized its permitting process to be a one-stop shop and has made positive customer service a key goal for all city departments and employees who interact with business. This was a crucial step in changing the image Long Beach has faced over the course of many years as being business unfriendly. Construction jobs, although temporary, were created when our Airport was expanded and our new courthouse was built due to a provision to include local hiring. Work on both the Gerald Desmond Bridge and the Port Middle Harbor project have begun, also with the guarantee of local hiring. Living wage positions were created with the expansion of the Airport. 

Luck was on our side recently when Mercedes-Benz decided to invest their regional office at the former Boeing building. Douglas Park Medical Office Campus broke ground recently to accommodate separate independent physicians’ groups. These wins were clearly a result of Long Beach having desirability, quality office stock and land availability, and good commercial brokers and developers who see the reason to invest in Long Beach. Lastly, it is important to note that the City Council recently passed a resolution to grow manufacturing and is researching ways to grow our craft beer industry.

All of the above are positive developments for our city; however, I feel we could and should do more to tackle our local economy with a clear vision set in place. I believe reinstating our Economic Development Department would go very far in helping to create significantly more opportunity for Long Beach residents while creating a return on investment for our city.

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