From the August 16, 2002 print edition

Leaders prepare to hype Loop 101 as tech hotbed

Mike Sunnucks, The Business Journal

Could the Loop 101 be the Valley's road to the promised land of the New Economy?

Economic developers and business leaders in Scottsdale, Tempe and Chandler are looking at branding the Loop 101/Pima freeway corridor as a technology hub.

They hope such a label will the give the region a brand name to help it better compete with other cities for economic investment, and encourage cooperation among municipalities.

It mirrors what has occurred in Boston and northern Virginia where tech-heavy highways Route 128 and the Dulles Toll Road are recognized as top corridors for software developers, research and development and information technology companies.

Local officials say the discussions are very preliminary and no formal effort has been launched.

"The folks I've chatted with are generally kind of intrigued by the idea," said Scottsdale Economic Development Administrator David Roderique.

Roderique and others are cognizant of the failed attempt to label the state the Silicon Desert or to find another tag to put Phoenix on high-tech maps that already include midsize markets such as Raleigh-Durham, N.C., and Austin, Texas.

"It's just to me a kind of interesting brainstorm," said Roderique. "Who knows if it will get anywhere?"

Scottsdale, Tempe and Chandler have plenty to tout in the semiconductor, biomedical, aerospace and high-tech research and development sectors.

Those suburbs are home to Intel Corp., Motorola Inc., the Mayo Clinic, General Dynamics Corp., and a myriad of mid-sized tech and medical firms as well as Arizona State University.

Tempe also was recently named the fourth-best city in which to work and live by Employment Review magazine, putting it in the same league as Raleigh and Cambridge, Mass.

The problem is that plenty of folks outside the state have no idea all that high-tech and electronics is clustered in an area they associate more with golf courses, college bowl games and tourism than computer chips and R&D.

"I don't think Arizona has a reputation as a tech center," said Ed Denison, president of the Arizona Technology Council, formerly The Arizona Software & Internet Association, or AZSoft.net.

"If we want to be a tech center, people need to be thinking of us as a tech center," Denison said.

For economic development branding to work, the name tag has to be recognized by its target audiences — in this case site selectors, the news media and tech firms.

"Silicon Valley and (Raleigh's) Research Triangle Park work because people recognize those locations and associate them with those names," said Jerry Gordon, chief executive of the Fairfax County (Va.) Economic Development Authority, which spends millions annually promoting the Dulles Corridor in Virginia.

"The designation of Highway 101 as a brand will succeed only to the extent that business decision makers are aware that it is the highway around Phoenix that is being referenced, not a Highway 101 in one of the other 49 states," he said.

Reaching the point of high-tech stardom has as much to do with image as critical mass.

Boston and Silicon Valley obviously have the quantity and quality of companies, talent and venture money to put them high on the tech ladder. But smaller markets such as Austin and Raleigh have ridden a wave of good marketing and on the coattails of corporate and R&D anchors, whether it be top-notch universities or an industry leader such as Dell Computer, which is based in Austin, Texas.

Meanwhile, large commercial centers such as Phoenix, Chicago and Houston have hefty tech sectors but still are associated with their old economy industries.

The Arizona Technology Council markets the state as the "Tech Oasis" and has partnered with groups in Tempe, Tucson, Scottsdale and Phoenix.

"We've been trying to brand the area a little bit as the Tech Oasis," said Denison. "As long as that does not conflict with what we do we don't have a problem. I do think there is a natural corridor there."

Touting the highway corridor also could help Scottsdale and Tempe as they face increased competition from Phoenix and Glendale — both of which have aggressive economic-recruitment strategies in motion, especially for biomedical and knowledge-based operations.

"Extensive competition between the West and East Valley is on the horizon," said Jay Butler, director of the Arizona Real Estate Center at ASU's College of Business.