ASHEVILLE: After exceeding the goals he and his team set in 2010, Ben Teague set the bar for the next five-year job-creation plan high enough that he gave himself heart palpitations, Teague said on.The executive director of the Economic Development Coalition for Asheville-Buncombe County said by 2020, his team will have helped 50 new “high-growth” companies to make Asheville their headquarters.
Teague also told the standing-room only crowd of about 300 who gathered at the Lioncrest building on the grounds of the Biltmore Estate that during the next five years the aim was to generate 3,000 new direct jobs that paid an average annual wage of $50,000.And he put the objective for new capital investment at $650 million, a 30 percent increase over the $500 million target Teague identified five years ago.
Ambitious marks all, Teague conceded.But “there’s great momentum behind Asheville right now,” he said.The Asheville community was able to achieve quite a bit coming out of “the height of the recession,” Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Kit Cramer reminded the audience.The previous plan, which spanned July 1, 2010, through June 30 of this year, yielded $1 billion in capital investment and 6,385 direct and indirect new jobs, according to chamber officials.
That plan’s initial goals were to generate 5,000 new jobs and $500 million in capital investment.So, perhaps Teague’s intentions weren’t so audacious, after all.Bill Dean, the Collider’s new CEO, who assumed the role last month, said he plans to use the brainpower at his disposal to take ideas and turn them into solutions and bring economic benefits to Asheville and Western North Carolina.
