Business development team looks for ideas in Austin, Texas

Dec. 30--Rapid growth has enlarged the Austin, Texas, metro area well beyond the famed city limits.

Leaders of Fort Lauderdale, which experienced its growth spurt in the 1960s through 1990s, want to know how the self-proclaimed "music capital of the world" is managing its newfound caché.

Forty-nine local professionals representing private and public entities in the Fort Lauderdale area are planning a four-day trip to Central Texas to look for economic development ideas that might be put to use here.

The leadership study trip, scheduled Jan. 10-13, will focus on health care, education, transportation and logistics, business best practices and quality of life, according to the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance, Broward County's public/private partnership for economic development.

The study team plans to compare and contrast the Austin area with Broward County and gather best practices of the thriving mid-sized metro, organizers said.

"What's Austin doing that we should consider?" asked Gail Bulfin, the alliance's vice president of membership development and director of the trip. "What are we doing that's similar? In what areas are they having more or less success?"

Alliance leaders considered seven cities, including New Orleans, Charleston, S.C., Baltimore, Nashville, San Antonio and Houston, before choosing Austin.

Austin was ultimately chosen because of its similarities to the Fort Lauderdale area -- both cities are home to global technology companies, a thriving tourism scene and popular festivals -- as well as Austin's reputation for innovation, Bulfin said.

Austin is the site of South by Southwest, an annual series of film, interactive media and music festivals that began in 1987 and will next take place March 10-20. The SXSW Film Conference attracts filmmakers of all levels and features panel discussions hosted by well-known artists from both sides of the camera. The Interactive Festival attracts major tech and consumer products companies. The Music Festival features hundreds of acts each year ranging in stature from aspiring to chart-topping.

The growth of the South by Southwest event "from a music festival into a world-class yearlong multifaceted initiative" piqued organizers' curiosity, Bulfin said. Does the festival's cutting edge reputation help the region recruit businesses to locate there? "We want to find out."

The Austin metro area, which includes parts of five Central Texas counties, is among the fastest-growing regions of the U.S. Its population grew about 30 percent from 1.41 million in 2005 to 1.84 million in 2014, according to U.S. Census estimates. South Florida's population grew 8.4 percent over the same period.

Travis County, where the city of Austin is located, gained 123,802 newcomers between 2013 and 2014 -- the most of any county in the U.S. and far exceeding second-place Jefferson County, Colo., with 34,205, according to a migration study released by the IRS. Broward County gained 2,783 during the same period.

The Austin area's median household income was $63,603 in 2014, compared with $48,458 for South Florida's tri-county area.

Austin is Texas' state capital and home to a growing number of tech firms. Major employers include Oracle, IBM, legalzoom, vmware, HomeAway and solarwinds. Computer maker Dell Inc. is headquartered in the area, as is upscale grocer Whole Foods.

According to the census, about 17 percent of business establishments in the Austin region were classified in 2013 as professional, scientific and high-tech -- about the same percentage as in South Florida. About 10 percent of Austin's business establishments were social assistance or health care-related, compared with 12 percent in South Florida. Construction accounted for 7.7 percent of Austin-area establishments, compared with 6.6 percent in South Florida. Real estate made up 5.5 percent of establishments in the Austin-area and 6.1 percent in South Florida.

Austin has been home to outlaw country singer Willie Nelson since the early 1970s and since 1976 to the long-running PBS concert series Austin City Limits. Its namesake music festival began in 2002.

The city is also known for restaurants that serve Central Texas-style barbecue, which differs from barbecue styles from Kansas City or North Carolina by its focus on slow-cooked smoked meat with no sauce.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler has been assisting the study team and will attended a reception on its arrival night. "lf I were the mayor of any other city, I'd want to come to Austin, too," Adler said by email. "This is a magical city that is prospering because we've become a hub of innovation, creativity and having fun.

"And unlike our barbecue masters, we're happy to share our secret sauce with anyone who wants to know how we make it work here."

In 2009, the alliance organized a similar study trip to Charlotte, N.C. Participants came away impressed by that city's unity of vision and commitment to collaboration and the trip helped persuade the alliance to form a strategic planning process modeled after the "six pillars" -- six development drivers that influence the future economy.

Cost of the trip will be about $1,500 per participant, which will be billed to the agencies they represent, Bulfin said.

In addition, sponsors will help with some of the costs. They include Patriot National Inc., JetBlue, FPL FiberNet, Nova Southeastern University, Florida Atlantic University, Broward College and Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport.

Study team members include Doug Bartel, senior director of business development, media and external relations for Florida Blue, a health insurance subsidiary of Blue Cross Blue Shield; Kate Goldman, director of government and community relations at Baptist Health South Florida; Jennifer O'Flannery Anderson, Nova Southeastern University vice president for advancement and community relations; Paul Calvaresi, transportation planner for the Broward Metropolitan Planning Organization; Jennifer Bales Drake, chair of the real estate practice group at Becker & Poliakoff P.A.; Jill Horowitz, Lifestyle Media Group vice president of business development; and Heidi Davis Knapik, land use attorney at the Gunster Law Firm in Fort Lauderdale.

Broward cities sending representatives on the trip are Coconut Creek, Fort Lauderdale, Sunrise, Miramar and Coral Springs.

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