Austin Contingent May Have Struck Mother Lode in California

"We came away with about six companies that are in some stage of considering Austin as a location for their operations," he tells GlobeSt.com. Some, he adds, might be sooner than later. "We believe, within a reasonable period of time, we'll be able to make some announcements."

Breier, the chamber's vice president for economic development, says the chamber was aware of a couple of companies thinking about Austin and a couple others were surprises.The group of 40 business people, University of Texas officials and Central Texas municipal leaders met with about 60 companies in California. To companies with current operations in Central Texas, they asked what else the area could do to help them grow their Austin bases. And, they played up Austin for companies not doing business here.

The California journey was the first for Austin officials since the mid-1990s when the local economy shifted into overdrive. Now that that the economy has slowed, recruitment and retention have returned to the top of the priority list.

For those companies not on the short-term horizon, the chamber will analyze their potential for coming to Austin. "Now we will categorize those and do a prospect tracking development over a long period of time," Breier says. "That's the real benefit."

Questions California executives had were about the Austin labor force, quality-of-life issues and utility costs. "Those issues are going to vary somewhat according to the company, but they're always going to be core issues," he says. The answers were that Austin has available and willing workers, a good quality of life and low utility costs, according to Breier.

He added that the amount of empty office space in Austin drew the attention of California firms. "Having the type of quality office space, quality buildings available today that we didn't have a year and a half ago is of a lot of interest to companies," he says.