[OMS_MANAGERS] FW: Watch the recorded version of yesterday's #CoreValues kickoff

Fri Jun 19 13:33:49 PDT 2015

FYI – new report is available from Smart Growth America, “Core Values: Why American Companies Are Moving Downtown.” See the email below for a video and link to the full report. In the report, SGA explored the trends and motivations of companies choosing to move to downtown locations in communities of all size. Smart Growth America conducted interviews with senior-level employees at these companies to understand why they chose the location they did. In the course of the interviews six common themes emerged explaining why companies chose to locate downtown:

·         To attract and retain talented workers. As companies compete for new hires and the best talent, being located in a vibrant neighborhood is considered a crucial selling point. The businesses in our study report that current and potential employees want neighborhoods with restaurants, cafes, cultural institutions, entertainment, and nightlife as well as easy access by public transportation.

·         To build brand identity and company culture: A downtown location projects innovation, connectedness, uniqueness, and allows companies to literally be at the center of things. For many companies, moving downtown was a way to set themselves apart from their competitors and to inspire their employees to live up to related brand aspirations.

·         To support creative collaboration: Many companies chose locations in dynamic, creative, engaging neighborhoods to help inspire their employees and encourage collaboration among co-workers as well as with employees at other companies or in other industries.

·         To be closer to customers and business partners: Streamlining the process for employees who take in-person meetings with clients and partners downtown.

·         To centralize operations: A central downtown location, because of its proximity to everything, was a natural choice for many companies when consolidating multiple locations, particularly if those locations were spread out over a single region.

·         To support triple-bottom line business outcomes: For many companies, investing in a city’s center was an opportunity for good corporate citizenship and a way to use their sizable investing power for good. Some reported that triple-bottom line business practices came with the ancillary benefit of making them more attractive as an employer.

From: info=smartgrowthamerica.org at mail.salsalabs.net [mailto:info=smartgrowthamerica.org at mail.salsalabs.net] On Behalf Of Alex Dodds, Smart Growth America
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2015 1:19 PM
To: STUART Sheri * OPRD
Subject: Watch the recorded version of yesterday's #CoreValues kickoff

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Sheri—

Yesterday we released new research<http://action.smartgrowthamerica.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=lbZqD4jXJoXwK0E8Xhz8n4yju%2FW7%2B%2FTV> all about companies that are moving to walkable downtowns. Core Values looks at why companies want to be in walkable places, and what they look for when choosing these locations.

To kick off this research and to hear more about the issues firsthand, we invited representatives from three companies included in our survey to join us in Washington, DC yesterday for a panel discussion. If you weren't able to watch the live stream of the event, a recorded version is now available:
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Amy Ronneberg of Be The Match, Jim Reilly of Panasonic, and Jack Riley of Fifth Third Bank discussed how a walkable downtown location has helped their businesses thrive. "We started with 65 possible locations and finally decided on the one downtown," Ronneberg explained of Be The Match's search in Minneapolis. "It became very clear that this was going to be an enormous opportunity for us to attract and retain talent."

Cities, for their part, can learn from this. Michael Deemer of the Downtown Cleveland Alliance, Brad Lacy of the Conway, AR Chamber of Commerce, and Mark Fisher of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce explained how they are working to create the kinds of places these companies seek. "For us, having three colleges in town is our biggest advantage," said Lacy, "if we create the type of city that's attractive to 21 or 22-year-olds when they graduate. That's really why we've grown as fast as we have over the past five years."

More information about all of this is available in the full report<http://action.smartgrowthamerica.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=E%2BBF4Zd84adcKWHZanDio%2BhJzHXK5aL3>. Visit that page to also see a list of all the companies included in our research and an interactive map of where they moved.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for yesterday's event—on our panels, at the Newseum, and online. We're looking forward to continuning this work in the months to come.

Sincerely,

Alex Dodds,
Communications Director
Smart Growth America

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