Knapp: Progress steady

• By GARY PERILLOUX
• Advocate business writer
• Published: Jul 1, 2008 - Page: 1D - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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The Baton Rouge Area Chamber’s new chief executive, Adam Knapp, sees strength and legs in the region’s economy despite the nation’s flirtation with recession since late 2007 and despite declining housing prices in metro markets on the East and West coasts.

Knapp spoke to the Press Club of Baton Rouge on Monday, 71 days after succeeding state Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret as BRAC’s leader and halfway through an ambitious five-year campaign — The Campaign for a Greater Baton Rouge — launched in late 2005.

The chamber exceeded its goals for jobs and capital investment in 2006 and 2007, Knapp said. BRAC should do the same in 2008, though it’s not halfway to the jobs goal at midyear.

Since the campaign began, 24 company expansions or relocations have been announced, with 2,075 jobs and about $1 billion in capital investment.

“That’s a great track record in 2‰ years,” Knapp said. “It’s actually remarkable when you compare it to other areas.”

BRAC issues new goals annually. For 2008, the chamber targets securing 1,200 jobs with competitive wages. It has produced more than 400 jobs with $205 million in capital investment during 2008.

Knapp said the chamber’s business development office has more than 40 active business prospects in its pipeline, which should assure that this year’s goals are met.

Asked how well the Baton Rouge economy is insulated from a national housing slump, Knapp said companies continue advancing plans for expansions in the Baton Rouge region at a strong pace, “which tells me there continues to be a strong demand for investment.”

The chamber’s biggest recent successes were convincing Albemarle Corp. to move its headquarters from Richmond, Va., to Baton Rouge and increasing Coca-Cola’s investment in a new bottling plant near Metro Airport to $178 million.

Knapp said the chamber forecasts Baton Rouge metro area job growth of 5,000 to 10,000 jobs this year. May’s employment of 373,600 was 6,100 jobs more than January but 1,900 below December, when employment is usually greatest for the holiday shopping season.

In the past several years, the chamber’s focus has gone far beyond job creation, to the underpinnings of job growth: government policy, electing business-friendly officeholders, creating strong public-private partnerships for education, enhancing the region’s transportation system and advocating greater investment in institutions that can build wealth and a better workforce, such as LSU, Southern University, Baton Rouge Community College and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center.

Knapp said the more than $4 billion Baton Rouge loop project, which local officials estimate can be built within a decade using public and private financing, is critical to the region’s future. So is Pennington, he said, which will yield a return more than three times greater than the dollars invested in efforts to combat cancer, diabetes and other health problems through nutritional research.

At the Legislature, bringing LSU funding to the Southern regional average for peer universities was a big boost — along with $75 million for deferred maintenance projects and $90 million in capital improvements, Knapp said. But an opportunity to create $13 million more in advanced faculty positions through additional student assessments was lost.