More and more, companies looking for a new home don’t call in an outside consultant. They do the search themselves.
That, site selector John Boyd Jr. said, is bad news for New Jersey.
When companies search in-house, Boyd said, they lean on state business rankings — and New Jersey’s are poor. A bad ranking can knock the state off the list before anyone takes a serious look at what it has to offer.
Then there’s this: Boyd says there is an earned reputation behind those rankings.
“For far too long, New Jersey was regarded by many of our clients not just as too expensive, but too slow,” he said. “That means New Jersey was too unpredictable and too risky.”
Boyd, principal of The Boyd Company, a corporate site selection firm, spoke Tuesday at the Rutgers Center for Real Estate symposium at The Heldrich in New Brunswick, on a panel about what it will take to keep and attract businesses.
He said the whole point of site selection is to cut risk. And the numbers show what that reputation has cost.
“Twenty years ago, New Jersey was home to 22 Fortune 500 headquarters,” he said. “Today, the number’s down to 15.”
Then came the question.
“Analysts ask themselves which one is next,” he said.
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Todd Fisher, Director of Strategic Initiatives and Economic Opportunity in the Office of the Governor, said the administration has talked with companies that decided to leave.
What it heard complicates the story.
“Nobody has one answer,” he said. “Nobody just says, ‘Oh, it’s the corporate business tax.’ It’s a series of things.”
And in most cases, he said, the decision has been building.
“Most of those decisions were made years ago, not months ago,” he said.
Here’s an issue: If no one leaves for one reason, Fisher said, the state can’t fix it with one move. Instead, it plans to go after every piece of the cost of doing business: how long a permit takes, the burden of regulation, the number of people a company needs just to fill out forms, the legal bills.
“All that is cost,” he said.
Fisher also pointed to the administration’s fiscal discipline and the credit upgrade Sherrill earned in her first year, saying companies notice.
And he said the low rankings cut both ways.
“We’re rated lowly right now. That’s an opportunity,” he said. “We can fix that.”
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What can be done?
Fisher said plenty of companies are still betting on New Jersey, including South Korean biotech Celltrion, which he said decided to double down here.
He also pointed to BeOne Medicines, which is adding $300 million to its Hopewell campus, pushing its New Jersey investment past $1 billion, and Bridgewater-based Amneal Pharmaceuticals, which is expanding manufacturing in Piscataway with the help of about $60 million in state tax credits.
“There are many companies that are choosing with their pocketbooks to grow in New Jersey because we have an incredible workforce,” he said.
Boyd said new industries are looking, too. He said makers of eVTOLs — electric aircraft that take off and land vertically, such as Archer and Joby — are eyeing New Jersey.
And sometimes, the math isn’t just about cost. Robert Antonicello, principal at GRID Real Estate in Jersey City, said a company he’s working with that has been in Hoboken for 40 years is moving to Jersey City — even though the city’s payroll tax will cost it about $80,000 a year, or more than $800,000 over a decade.
The company is willing to pay that premium, he said, because it expects to attract more and better employees, with a one-seat commute from Manhattan, and to get remote workers back into the office.
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Amy Herbold, CEO of Choose New Jersey, said the state needs to tell its story better.
“All we’re reading right now is the companies leaving,” she said.
She said Choose plans to highlight companies that have stayed, reinvested and expanded here — so the next site selector who looks at New Jersey sees more than a ranking.
For Boyd, changing the narrative — and the numbers — has never been more important.
High-profile departures, like those by Samsung and Burlington Stores, have only added to the state’s negative perception. The rankings make it worse.
“Rankings are more important today than ever before,” he said.
Boyd said it will take someone out front selling the state. He’s got someone in mind.
“The common denominator among successful states is having a pro-business governor that’s actually out there promoting the state,” he said. “Showtime for Governor Sherrill.”
