Interest in LV as relocation site remains strong

Thursday, July 22, 1999 | 10:53 a.m.

Interest in the Las Vegas area continues to boom among businesses considering relocating.

While the state has documented a 43.5 percent lag in inquiries from out-of-state businesses, the Nevada Development Authority is having a hard time keeping up with companies interested in the southern end of the state.

Somer Hollingsworth, president and chief executive officer of the NDA, delivered a status report Tuesday on the organization's activities for the fiscal year and listed some of the organization's success stories of the last 12 months.

The NDA's mission is to attract nongaming companies to diversify the local economy.

Hollingsworth's report came on the heels of a six-month report from the Nevada Commission on Economic Development that said inquiries to the state have fallen from 478 in the first six months of 1998 to 270 in the first half of 1999.

Bob Shriver, executive director of the state agency, said competitors have done a better job of retaining their businesses.

Shriver, who attended Tuesday's NDA session, said California saw many of its companies leave the state in the early 1990s when the economy was soft, but now the state is taking a more aggressive stance toward retention.

Hollingsworth also said competition continues to be fierce to recruit businesses to diversify the Las Vegas-area economy. He said a region in Texas is offering financial incentives to lure industries there -- a $3,000 bounty for every employee paid at least $7 an hour and $5,000 for every employee paid at least $10 an hour.

The contacts the NDA is making are more valid than the inquiries received by the state, Hollingsworth said. The reason: The NDA charts site visits instead of inquiries.

"We don't even count inquiries," Hollingsworth said. "We're more worried about site visits. We find that companies are a lot more serious when they're looking at you eye to eye. And we're thrilled with the site visits we've had recently."

The NDA said it assisted with 160 site visits in the 1998-99 fiscal year. In 1997-98, the agency helped with 146 visits.

Hollingsworth said the NDA is continuing its bid to focus on four industry groups in its recruitment efforts. The four industries:

* Communications equipment. Those include call centers and a variety of telecommunications companies. Hollingsworth said the industry is high on the Las Vegas area because of its 24-hour work force and employees that are computer literate.

* The automotive industry. Spurred by the development of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway north of Las Vegas, the NDA is seeking companies that work in aftermarket products, accessories and automotive research and development.

* High-tech medical industries. The NDA is focusing its efforts on medical lasers, including applications in eye and cosmetic surgeries.

* The motion picture industry. The organization has handed off recruitment efforts to the Entertainment Development Corp. of Las Vegas, which is attempting to lure feature films, television series, independent operators and high-tech affiliates.

The NDA is particularly interested in growth companies within the industries -- those that have increases of 35 percent in sales or employee base.

Hollingsworth said it's too early to gauge the success of the NDA's recruitment efforts in the four target industries. The agency is in the midst of an eight-month plan, which includes setting up booths at conventions and trade shows the target industries would attend.

"We have experts in each of these areas," Hollingsworth said, "because they're all pretty sophisticated and require someone who knows their way around it."

In his report to the NDA membership, Hollingsworth listed several companies that have relocated to the Las Vegas area and others that have expanded operations with the NDA's assistance.

New companies include Minelab USA, an Australian company that manufactures metal detectors and minesweepers; Regis University, a Denver-based private school; Shuffle Master, a Minnesota company that manufactures automatic card shuffling machines; Miles Kimball, a Wisconsin-based catalog sales company; Bank of America, which is adding a call center; and National Airlines, a new airline that began flying in May.

Expansions assisted by the NDA: First National Bank of Marin, a credit card call center facility; Clientlogic, which formerly was known as Softbank, the producers of the Comdex computer trade show; and the Winning Combination, a vitamin manufacturing and distribution company.