This is gonna happen.
Note here that TD wants a "major presence" and Cherry Hill just ain't major.
Full text:
http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/stories/2008/04/07/editorial2.html?page=1
New TD Commerce already in play
Philadelphia Business Journal - by Bernard Dagenais
Region seeks to score TD [Philadelphia]
Get ready for the "poaching" accusations to heat up.
It was bound to happen. A new business-friendly mayor takes office in Philadelphia and, suddenly, competition for businesses within the region heats up.
Witness two scoops in this week's issue. The newly merged TD Commerce Bank has talked with Mayor Michael Nutter about moving its headquarters, which are now in Portland, Maine, to Philadelphia (See Page 1).
Commerce Bank was based in Cherry Hill, and has significant operations in neighboring Mount Laurel. Losing those jobs would be a blow to South Jersey.
Financial services company BlackRock Inc., which is in preliminary talks to move 800 jobs from Plainsboro, N.J., to Philadelphia, is also in play (See Page 5). Even though none of those jobs are currently in Greater Philadelphia, it's a good bet New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine would hate to see them leave the north part of his state.
The issue of luring jobs from one local jurisdiction to a neighboring locale heats up every few years. But now it's under a mayor who pledges to be a regional unifier, during a time in which the region is marketing itself globally as a single entity like never before.
One can hardly be surprised when the Cherry Hill mayor's office suggests that Nutter should keep his ambitious designs off of their corporate citizens.
While that's a legitimate view, when the issue is considered in a broader context, the Philadelphia region should rejoice that Philadelphia is again in the game. For too long it hasn't been, which has impeded regional growth.
Philadelphia's job losses to suburban locales over recent decades is well documented. Yet, when it comes to transportation options and amenities such as restaurants, the city has much to offer. Business tax rates and an attitude of ambivalence toward business, have been major impediments to job growth.
Nutter promises to lower taxes and make government more responsive. Despite past disappointments, many in the business community believe he will do what he says.
With Unisys and Verizon Communications having already announced they would increase the number of jobs in the city by a combined 625, there's evidence that the talk about a new era in Philadelphia is more than just talk.
It's been said that the region doesn't benefit by shifting jobs back and forth from within. The goal, rather, must be to increase overall job growth.
Nutter's actions aren't out of line.
Keeping as many of the former Commerce Bank headquarters jobs as possible in the Philadelphia region should be a priority. There are indications that parent company TD Bank Financial Group of Toronto will want to base its U.S. operations in a major city. Commerce's headquarters building on Route 70 in Cherry Hill is an attractive structure, but it better fits ousted CEO Vernon W. Hill II's style of bucking the trend of traditional banks.
TD Commerce's new leaders want to make a splash in the United States. Most of its operations are in the Northeast, which makes it unlikely that it would follow others to Charlotte, N.C., where both Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America are based. TD Commerce would be one in a crowd in New York. Here, the bank could become an anchor tenant in the proposed 1,500-foot-tall American Commerce Center, the city's tallest structure.
Commerce's Mount Laurel campus could continue to operate as a training center, while the current Commerce Bank headquarters in Cherry Hill would be prime property in a relatively strong commercial real estate market.
There's bound to be some hand-wringing over these latest developments, but it's good for the entire region that the city at its core is ready to gain economic strength.
Bernard Dagenais, editor of Philadelphia Business Journal, can be reached at
[email protected].
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Wow, as SOON as I saw a new name writing on this page, i thought to myself, "This guy is going to say something about it looking like the freedom tower," and low and behold...
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