Rutherford County Keeps Business in High Gear and On Track for Success
Published Jul 22, 2008
Treatment systems company Adenus Technologies selected Smyrna as the site for its 33,000-square-foot headquarters.
Rutherford County is on fire. Retail development is booming throughout the county, with 1.3 million square feet of retail space and more than $200 million in capital investment in two big projects alone.
In 2007, four existing companies announced expansions and seven new industrial concerns said they were moving in.
Franke USA picked a site adjacent to the Smyrna Airport Business Park for a $38 million headquarters for its division that produces kitchen systems for food-industry users, in part because workers in La Vergne didn’t want to relocate.
Adenus Technologies, which specializes in products for decentralized wastewater treatment systems, opened a new headquarters operation in Smyrna in July 2007.
Murfreesboro’s Gateway, a mixed-use development that will have a new hospital, hotel/conference center and office buildings, has received kudos from the Tennessee governor’s office.
Among advantages companies cite are close interstate access without the heavier traffic volume and proximity to Middle Tennessee State University, the state’s largest undergraduate campus.
A major university of 23,000 students turning out graduates with degrees in such disciplines as business, science and music is a major asset, says Holly Weber, vice president of economic development for the Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce.
“We have a pro-business climate, our county leaders want growth and they want sustainable growth,” she says.
Diversity in type and location sets Rutherford’s robust economic development apart from other communities.
Health care and retail are big contributors, but the county is home to companies as distinct as Franke, Adenus, L&W Engineering, State Farm Insurance, marketing firm George P. Johnson Co. and Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, named in 2007 as one of Inc. magazine’s fastest-growing companies.
And the growth isn’t limited to one spot. Murfreesboro, Smyrna, La Vergne and even Eagleville are getting pieces of the action.
“It is just not the county seat. It is happening everywhere,” says Bill Jones, a Murfreesboro bank executive and chairman of the public-private economic development initiative Destination Rutherford. The first phase of the initiative generated 9,300 primary jobs and direct earnings of $455 million for the county.
For Automation NTH LLC, convenience to Nashville’s airport and major clients such as Nissan and General Motors Corp. played a big role in its decision to locate in Rutherford.
The company helps the auto, consumer products, electronics and wastewater industries automate their production equipment.
“We are expanding internally, converting into additional office space and hiring more engineers,” says Dan Barber, vice president of sales and operations.
Gary Coonan, CEO of Stinger Medical, set up shop in 1994. The company, which makes portable equipment used in hospitals and health-care facilities, has expanded four times. The most recent move involved buying a 120,000-square-foot facility on Park Avenue in Murfreesboro. A company that started with one person now has 120 employees and counts 1,500 hospitals around the country as clients for its “point-of-care” medical equipment, such as vital-signs monitors, carts, wall arms and the systems that power them.
Rutherford County is an ideal location for a company that relies on interstates for shipping, especially to the south and east. “We haven’t had the traffic jams, we are still near the highway, and all of that is real convenient without the hassles of a bigger city,” Coonan says.
Stinger looked at neighboring counties for its most recent expansion, “but our staff here was very boisterous” about staying in the area, he says.
Industry leader George P. Johnson chose La Vergne’s CenterPointe industrial park for a 300,000-square-foot fabrication and storage facility for the trade show exhibits it builds. The company expects to employ 100 people there.
Rutherford is Tennessee’s fastest-growing county and that growth is capturing national attention.
U.S. News & World Report in September 2007 ranked Smyrna in its top 10 places to retire.
A few months earlier, Forbes ranked La Vergne as No. 61 on its list of the nation’s fastest-growing suburbs.
The bottom line for Rutherford in 2007 was more than $104 million in new capital investment and 1,000 jobs in the industrial sector alone.
“We’ve got an active chamber of commerce and business community,” Jones says. “We also have government entities that are willing to consider the economic benefits of projects, and all that is in addition to a great location, great school system and great university as well.”
Story by Pamela Coyle
Photo by Jeff Adkins
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