Archive for the ‘MVEDA Reports’ Category

During the month of October, MVEDA invested considerable time on its target marketing and prospecting efforts.   Early in the month MVEDA conducted a prospect visit to Washington, D.C. where we met with several site consultants and companies involved with federal contracting efforts.   During the month, MVEDA also attended two trade shows: the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS) in Las Cruces which focused on the commercial aerospace industry; and Solar Power International in Anaheim where over 2,000 companies exhibited.  At both shows, MVEDA sponsored invitation only events where we had the opportunity to engage and develop relationships with companies within each respective industry.  At ISPCS, MVEDA sponsored the conference’s opening reception which received significant attention, and at Solar Power International, MVEDA and Verde Corporate Realty Services co-sponsored an event hosted by the New Mexico Partnership where over 250 company representatives attended.  New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson also attended this event and spoke to the audience about the continued opportunities for solar energy development and manufacturing in New Mexico.

To date during the current fiscal year, MVEDA has created 36 new leads, representing over 3,190 jobs thereby indicating a very healthy pipeline of future projects.   Renewable energy and manufacturing & logistics projects represent the overwhelming greater percentage of our leads.

November marks a critical time period for MVEDA in our prospecting activities.  Economic development recruiting efforts normally have a minimum sales cycle of six months.  Given that we have only eight months left in our fiscal year, this means that we have only two months left to develop new leads that may have a chance of closing prior to July 2010 when our new fiscal year begins.  Therefore, MVEDA will be concentrating significant efforts on getting current leads and prospects to the finish line.

The open projects that MVEDA believes have the greatest likelihood of closing this fiscal year include;

• Project Windtower, an alternative energy manufacturer,
• Project Alimentos, a food processing company, and
• Project Roadrunner and Project X, both alternative energy developers.

If realized, these four projects represent over 200 jobs to Dona Ana County and over $300MM in capital investments.

Yesterday, we held our October Business on the Border Luncheon where Wayne Savage and Pat Hynes presented on the upcoming Leonard R. Sugerman Public Forum and International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS) events which will be taking place October 20th to the 22nd at the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces.  MVEDA will be sponsoring the opening reception for all registered attendees of ISPCS. As economic developers we work very hard and spend time and resources to get in front of industry decision makers and encourage business attraction to our region.  The fact that ISPCS is taking place in our own back yard with industry leaders attending creates a very powerful marketing tool for MVEDA and the region as a whole.

To recap lead generation activity over the past month, MVEDA generated fifteen new leads compared with ten the last month, thereby showing a very healthy pipeline of projects and interest.   Although alternative energy companies continue to make up over 1/3 of all our leads in the past two months, the overall percentage has dropped slightly and we have seen an increase in the percentage of lead generation within the aerospace and food processing sectors.  We currently have 25 new leads in the pipeline for this fiscal year totaling 2,512 potential jobs and over 1 million square feet of potential real estate needs.

As announced last week, Frontier Airlines stated that they would be closing their Las Cruces reservation center towards the end of this year.  MVEDA has already begun to market the facility as a plug-n-play call center to the site selector community and have currently received two inquiries.

In September, MVEDA attended the Industrial Asset Management Council (IAMC) conference in Minneapolis.  This is the premier event for site consultants.  MVEDA co-hosted a site consultant dinner put on by the New Mexico Partnership which received strong attendance.

For the month of October, MVEDA has a very busy marketing and travel schedule consisting of:

• Oct. 12-16: Prospect mission to Washington D.C. to meet primarily with defense related firms and site consultants
• Oct. 20-22: Leonard R. Sugerman Public Forum and ISPCS
• Oct. 26-29: Prospect mission in Los Angeles and attendance at the Solar Power International Show.

Finally, I am happy to say that on September 22, 2009, the County Commission voted unanimously on the passage of the Local Economic Development Act (LEDA) in Dona Ana County.

The September Business on the Border Luncheon featured Lisa Munoz from Paso del Norte Group who spoke about OECD’s regional study of the 11 higher educational institutions within the region to include El Paso and Juarez.  Although this study is just getting underway, we hope that it will provide us with a road map of the regional assets and common threads we have between these institutions to help us better identify opportunities for further economic development growth and the skill sets to both serve and attract future industry.  A copy of Lisa’s presentation is attached (Adobe Acrobat -375KB).

In the first month of our fiscal year, as reported August 15th to MVEDA’s Board, MVEDA’s new activity consisted of 10 leads totaling 1,275 jobs and nearly 500,000sf of facility space.  Leads are classified as companies with identifiable project parameters to include real estate and project timelines and who are requesting specific information about the region.  These 10 leads represent 11.2% of all MVEDA lead generation activity for the past fiscal year so in terms of building out our future pipeline of new project opportunities, we feel we started the fiscal year on the right foot.  As you can see from the accompanying chart, 40% of all new leads fall within the renewable energy industry, all solar energy related.  It is important that we concentrate on lead activity because this defines our opportunities for job creation 12 to 18 months out.

At the August 15^th board meeting, MVEDA reported forty (40) active prospects totaling 3,158 jobs.  Prospects are defined as companies who have toured the region to include local industries considering expansion.  Of this group, MVEDA has defined 8 top prospects who we are actively working with on a regular basis and who we have determined are close to making decisions, whether that is in Dona Ana County or somewhere else.  As we track lead generation for job creation 12 to 18 months out, our prospect activity is meant to track potential new job creation within the current fiscal year.

MVEDA has also participated in two prospect missions with the New Mexico Partnership;  one to the New England region where 15 companies were visited and more recently to the San Francisco/Bay area where we met with 12 companies.  Of the 12 companies we met with in the Bay Area, 10 were solar manufacturing companies and almost all foresaw the potential of projects in the next 12 to 18 months.

I believe that even in this economic climate, we are off to a great start on our marketing and lead generation efforts and we continue to develop the building blocks for future economic development growth to occur.  We hope to see you at our next Business on the Border Luncheon, October 6, 2009.

Reports just released by the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department indicate that the Dona Ana County economy continued to soften during the second quarter of 2009.  According to the report, total reported gross receipts for all industries fell 3% when compared to the second quarter of 2008.  The reduction was less than the 4.3% reduction recorded in the first quarter. Total reported gross receipts for retail trade were 10% lower when compared to the second quarter of 2008.

The construction sector continues to soften, but not as severely as during the first quarter. Total reported gross receipts were 4.3% lower in the second quarter of 2009 as compared to 2008. New residential permits issued in the county were 17.1% lower and total permit valuations (all classifications) fell 11.6%

According to preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor Statics, Dona Ana County’s unemployment rate in June, 2009 was 7.3%. This is lower than the national rate of 9.5%, but higher than the state rate of 6.8%.

Using a variety of sources, MVEDA tracks and reports changes in labor force, employment, construction permits and total reported gross receipts on a quarterly and annual basis. These economic indicator reports are available on MVEDA website.  The report for the second quarter of 2009 will be released in the near future.

Detailed New Mexico gross receipts files are available on UNM’s Bureau of Business & Economic Research website. Current and historical labor force data for Dona Ana County (Las Cruces NM MSA) are available on the Bureau of Labor Statics’ website.