Local Headline News for Georgetown/Hutto/Taylor

The region’s best-kept secret?

Written by Shannon Colletti Friday, 09 May 2008

With inexpensive land, available buildings and small-town charm, Taylor has many draws for businesses

Taylor — As Central Texas continues to grow, the area has piqued the interest of companies wanting to do business or expand their existing business here. And several are turning their attention to Taylor.

Jason Ford, president and chief executive officer of the Taylor Economic Development Corporation, said the city has recently received inquiries from a mix of industries.

“We’re definitely seeing a marked increase of prospects looking at Taylor who are coming to Taylor first,” he said. “Industry players are now coming to us directly because when they hear the buzz about Austin, they hear about this land and the buildings in Taylor and want to know more about it.”

Along with the city’s competitively priced land and low fixed cost in real estate, Ford said Taylor offers cheaper labor costs without necessarily sacrificing the quality of the labor and provides plenty of accessible rail line. The city has small-town charm and a strong problem-solving culture, he said. He added that the city is having success in attracting interest from prospects in the clean energy sector, which he attributes primarily to the cheap land and the draw of a vacant, 330,000 sq. ft. facility.

Lure of industrial property

Near the intersection of Hwy. 79 and FM 397 stands the largest industrial building in Central Texas. Taylor officials said there recently has been much interest from prospects looking to utilize the empty space.

Intercraft Co., a picture frame manufacturer, built the facility, which sits on nearly 40 acres with room for expansion, in the early 1980s and expanded it in the 1990s. Intercraft moved its headquarters to Austin a few years ago, leaving the building empty.

John Nelson, former TEDC executive director, said Intercraft was probably the largest company to come into Taylor, with some 750 employees at its peak. The company went offshore with its manufacturing, and its closure was gradual, happening over a three- to four-year period. Nelson said the company slowly reduced its workforce, which softened the economic effects on the community.

Big Industrial, LLC purchased the facility last summer. The company acquires, restores and leases surplus industrial properties and spent about a million dollars renovating this one.

“They’ve been an extremely good company to work with in terms of working with the community, trying to find the best fit and trying to find a company that will create a lot of jobs and make a lot of investment,” Nelson said of Big Industrial.

Ford said the building — most likely to be used for manufacturing, storage or both — has been shown recently to several companies. He declined to cite specific companies, but said they are in the wind power, solar power and biomaterial industries. He said Taylor wants to recruit energy and eco-friendly companies.

“Many of the renewable energy cluster companies will have the same type of success that semi-conductor companies had in the last 10 to 20 years. It’s one of the new, high capital-intensive industries,” he said.

Ford said it is still too early to know what an incentives package might include or how many jobs might be created when someone moves in.

He did predict, however, that the facility will have a new occupant within the next 12 to 24 months and that the city will announce several smaller acquisitions by the end of the summer.

New kid on the block

The parent company of restaurants Sirloin Stockade, Montana Mike’s and Coyote Canyon, Stockade Companies, LLC relocated its headquarters to Taylor from Hutchinson, Kan., last month. The franchisor has 90 restaurants in nine states and throughout Mexico.

Tom Ford, CEO and majority partner, worked as a dishwasher in the first Sirloin Stockade in 1966. He rose through the ranks and also purchased his own franchises, opening a Sirloin Stockade in Taylor in 1987. The following year, he bought the historic Eanes Building at 113 E. Third St., opened a franchise company there and also moved to the area. In 2004, Ford became the majority stakeholder when he and three others bought Stockade Companies.

Partner and chief operating officer Terry Harstad said it took more than four years to make the final decision to relocate to Taylor.

“It certainly was a decision we didn’t take lightly,” Harstad said. “We wanted to make sure our current franchisees and staff were very, very comfortable with the new ownership. We’ve demonstrated over the last four years that the company is solid, is growing and is extremely economically stable, so the timing was right to make the transition and move the offices to Texas.”

According to Harstad, Ford spearheaded the move, firmly believing that with the region’s common sense approach to restaurant business and numerous chain-restaurant headquarters, the Dallas-Austin-San Antonio corridor is the cutting edge of the restaurant industry in mid-America. Harstad acknowledged that while there is a lot of creativity on the coasts, that creativity does not always meet the needs of the middle of the country, where most of Stockade Companies’ franchises are located.

The fact that Ford already owned office space in Taylor, along with the city’s cost effectiveness and its reputation as a great place to raise a family, made Taylor the obvious choice for relocation.

Stockade Companies joined Ford’s franchise company, T. Ford Enterprises, in the Eanes Building. Renovations began earlier this year.

The firm has about 30 employees on staff and will move seven or eight of them initially, with more to come. Harstad said his company has already created two administrative assistant jobs and expects to create half a dozen more jobs over time.

In the near future, three franchises will open in the states, including a new Montana Mike’s in Georgetown next month. Seven new locations will also open over the next year in Mexico, which is the company’s hottest growth market right now, Harstad said.

Growing business

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas has been in Taylor for more than a decade. ERCOT operates the electric grid and manages the deregulated market for more than 75 percent of the state’s land area. The Texas Interconnected System established ERCOT, a nonprofit corporation operating under legislative statute, in 1970 to meet the requirements of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, said Dottie Roark, ERCOT spokeswoman. The organization began with two employees.

The company has grown drastically over time. In 1981, TIS transferred operating functions to ERCOT, making it the central operating coordinator for Texas. Five years later, ERCOT opened its first office in Austin and added four more employees. The Texas Legislature voted to deregulate the wholesale generation market in 1995, and the following year ERCOT became the first independent system operator in the country.

“The state went through deregulation, and that was a big change,” Nelson said. “ERCOT was given the responsibility of monitoring and managing the deregulation process. That’s when they really took off and began to grow tremendously.”

At this point, ERCOT needed a permanent location for its business. Roark said former director Sam Jones was a big advocate for keeping ERCOT in Taylor because there it was centrally located in ERCOT’s region, reasonably close to a major airport (Austin Mueller at the time) and had communications already in place. ERCOT leased the well-known “blue building” and property before purchasing it in 2000. That same year, ERCOT hired executive staff and expanded to 50 employees, began construction of an Austin facility and started planning construction of a tornado-resistant operations control center in Taylor.

In 2001, ERCOT opened a 45,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art facility in Austin. The following year, an 85,000 sq. ft. control center opened in Taylor. By 2005, ERCOT had completed a new 75,000 sq. ft. expansion facility, TCC II, at the Taylor site. To ensure TCC II was built in Taylor, the city and TEDC donated the land for it.

Today, ERCOT employs approximately 640 high-tech employees, 570 of whom work in Taylor, and also uses 300 Taylor-based contractors. Roark said the company expects the total number of employees to grow to 720 by the end of the year.

“ERCOT is happy to be a part of the Taylor community,” Roark said. “Many of our employees have chosen to live in the Taylor and Hutto communities, and many are active in area organizations.”

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Taylor Economic Development Corporation

10 largest employers in Taylor

• ERCOT (640 employees)
• Taylor Independent School District (540)
• Corrections Corp. of America/T. Don Hutto (275)
• Wal-Mart (265)
• John’s Community Hospital (215)
• Durcon Laboratory Tops, Inc. (180)
• Floydco, Inc. (170)
• Burrows Cabinets (150)
• City of Taylor (148)
• H-E-B (100-150)

Growing labor pool

• There were 80,200 workers in Taylor’s labor force in 2004.
• Today, there are an estimated 100,000+ workers due to Toll 130.

“We are in growth mode,” said Jason Ford, president/CEO of TEDC. “There’s nothing we can do about it. If we do nothing, Taylor is going to grow, but we can influence that type of growth. We have to have responsible growth that doesn’t put too much of a demand on our current infrastructure.”

Commercial Real Estate
Industrial real estate in Taylor costs less than properties closer to Austin (2007 estimates)
Market	Use	Average price
Taylor	Industrial - Manufacturing	$0.30 to $0.45/sq. ft. NNN*
Austin-Round Rock	Industrial - Manufacturing	$0.42 to $0.65/sq. ft. NNN
Taylor	Industrial - Office	$0.30 to $0.67/sq. ft. NNN
Austin-Round Rock	Industrial - Office	$0.42 to $0.65/sq. ft. NNN
Taylor	Industrial - Land	$6,000 to $29,500/acre
Austin-Round Rock	Industrial - Land	$50,000 to $100,000/acre
*NNN=Base rate (excludes taxes, insurance, etc.) Source: NAICIP The Source 2007 YE and Taylor EDC estimates

 

Business retention and expansion in Taylor

Jason Ford, president and CEO of the Taylor Economic Development Corporation, said the TEDC gives as much attention to small businesses as it does to major corporations, adding “you never know where the next success story is going to come from.”

Businesses that have seen success in Taylor:

• Burrows Cabinets
  • 1353 W. Second St.
  • What: Cabinet manufacturer
  • Opened: January 2006 with 115 employees
  • Status: Now has 150 employees and just acquired Leander-based Cabinets Deluxe, which added 50 jobs to Burrows Cabinets
• Alliance Chemical
  • 204 S. Edmond St.
  • What: Chemical provider
  • Opened: 1998
  • Status: Currently expanding
• Circleville Store
  • 600 S. Hwy. 95, north of Taylor
  • What: General store
  • Opened: 1857
  • Status: Celebrated its 150th anniversary last June
• Ed’s Place
  • 209 W. Third St.
  • What: Bar and grill
  • Opened: 1959 by the owner
  • Status: Will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year; currently has two employees
• Schwenker Pharmacy
  • 2407 N. Main St.
  • What: “Typical old-time pharmacy”
  • Opened: Early 1950s
  • Status: Currently has eight employees
• ERCOT
  • 2705 W. Lake Drive
  • What: Operates state’s electric grid and manages most of state’s deregulated market
  • Opened: 1970 with two employees
  • Status: In 2001, ERCOT opened a second facility in Austin. In 2005, it expanded its Taylor facility. The company now has more than 640 employees.
• Floydco, Inc.
  • 1604 W. Second St.
  • What: Full-service glass company and paint and body shop
  • Opened: Floyd’s Paint and Body Works was founded in 1948; in 1954 Floyd’s Glass Company was added. The businesses were incorporated in 1974.
  • Status: The company occupies 48,000 sq. ft. of office and warehouse space and employs about 170; it is currently expanding its warehouse space by 12,500 sq. ft.
• Johns Community Hospital
  • 305 Mallard Lane
  • What: Nonprofit hospital
  • Opened: 1967 with 80 employees
  • Status: Currently has about 204 employees
• Taylor Bedding Co.
  • 601 W. Second St.
  • What: Manufactures mattresses and bedding products
  • Opened: 1900 by the Forwood family
  • Status: Generates $18 million in annual mattress sales, produces in excess of 800 pieces a day that are sold in five states and employs about 85 people
• Temple College at Taylor
  • 516 N. Main St.
  • What: Taylor campus of Temple College
  • Opened: Fall 1997, enrollment of 136 students
  • Status: Fall 2007 enrollment was 683 students; additional 191 students taking Temple College classes at Hutto, Taylor and Granger high schools

On April 23, officials and representatives met to celebrate the future site of the East Williamson County Higher Education Center. This multiple institution campus will be located in Taylor at Hwy. 79 and FM 973 and is designed to meet the academic and workforce needs of all East Williamson County residents. EWCHEC is a partnership among Temple College, Texas State Technical College Waco, area school districts, the Texas Bioscience Institute and other entities.

Also in the works is the East Williamson County Regional Park, which will be in north Taylor, adjacent to the East Williamson County Special Events Center. The 75-acre, multi-million-dollar athletic complex will include multiple sports fields, batting cages, trails, gardens and playgrounds.

Officials said both projects should be major boons to the local economy.