The views of the authors on this website are not neccessarily the views of the website. All comments are solely the responsibility of those who write them.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

During slump, Delmarva businesses still expanding

SALISBURY -- In the midst of an economic slump, businesses throughout Delmarva have begun to hint at an upturn in the economy.
Within the past few months, several businesses, including Evolution Craft Brewery, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Peninsula Regional Medical Center, Bayhealth and Salisbury University have announced or completed expansions, some of which cost millions of dollars.
"In the Salisbury area we have three anchors -- one is Salisbury University, one is the hospital and one is Perdue," said Steve Adams, an associate professor of business management at Salisbury University. "The great thing about regional economic development for those three is it looks like they are not going anywhere."
Among the recent expansions are an $18 million upgrade to PRMC's surgical services department that is expected to increase the hospital's 16 operating rooms by 200 square feet and double the size of four of them to 800 square feet.
In the past three years, PRMC has also undergone two other multimillion-dollar upgrades, including the 196,000-square-foot Layfield Tower and the 36,000-square-foot Richard A. Henson Cancer Center.
The upgrades to the surgical center are expected to take three years. During that time, the PRMC foundation is expected to raise $3 million toward the two-story expansion.
Salisbury University also completed expanding housing and bringing additional businesses to the campus with the completion of Sea Gull Square and signaled a growing interest in business majors with the completion of the Perdue School of Business.
The Sea Gull Square project had a price tag of $45 million for the 230,000-square-foot building, while the Perdue School of Business cost about $55 million.
"All around the country, Maryland is known for top-notch research in healing, science and discovery," said Governor Martin O'Malley at the ribbon-cutting ceremony in September. "But we have a gulf of opportunity in our state that can only be crossed if we graduate more young people from business schools."
Wor-Wic Community College also invested in expanding education throughout the Lower Shore when they marked the completion of the $23.7 million Allied Health Building.
Adams said the combination of growth in anchor industries and increasing town-gown relations has also led to students from local universities seeing a benefit to staying in the area after graduation as opposed to moving to more metropolitan areas.
He said one of the biggest complaints he used to receive from students was there weren't enough activities to do throughout the local community and they hope to move to northern Delaware or the western shore as soon as they could after graduation.
Recently, Adams says he has talked with students who aren't as interested in getting off the Eastern Shore.
"Evo and Dogfish Head are attractive and the idea there is going to be something like that coming to Salisbury is very attractive to people in their 20s," said Adams, who also said Burley Oak Brewing Co. could be an asset to attracting and keeping younger generations in the Berlin area.
With the continued growth of Wallops Island, Adams believes there is a great opportunity for the Lower Shore to grow, especially if local institutions of higher learning launch engineering programs and coordinate with the Goddard Space Flight Center.
"You are talking about something that could attract more and more technical jobs and might mean more people with technical backgrounds might want to stay around and that might influence local universities to learn more in the engineering direction," said Adams. "That could be a huge game changer."
Looking toward the next 10 years in terms of business development and growth throughout Delmarva, Adams believes Wallops is the "wild card," adding, "I don't think a story about the next 10 years of economic development on Delmarva would be complete without reference to that potential."

No comments: