What Does Industry Want in a Location?

A sort of “candid camera” operation is often at work when it comes to locating a business.

And, as the familiar TV warning has it, “Smile” – your town may be on it.

That’s the tip from Leonard Yaseen, 48-year-old Chicagoan, a partner in the Fantus Co. of New York City. The firm specializes in finding suitable places for businessmen to locate their plants.

His influence has been felt in this state. He worked toward location of the Albany Felt Co. in St. Stephens; Elgin National Watch Co. in Elgin; Westinghouse Air Brake Co., Batesburg; and the Torrington Co., Pickens and Clinton – to name a few.

What are the differences between locations!

Size is an important factor.

“In the next decade,” he says, “it will be the every rare exception when a manufacturer decides to build a factory in a big city area.”

Cheaper land, labor and reduced taxes lure the businessman to more rural areas, but there’s much more to it than that.

“The psychological climate of a community is the key factor in locating a plant because it exerts a strong influence on an employe’s productivity,” he says.

That’s where some “little things” may count a lot – things that the town’s civic minded develpers may have never considered. Such as:

Do transient drivers in your town get tickets and pay stiff fines when such acts may not been necessary?

Bad business, says Yaseen. It may show your town operates speed traps and fines heavily to cut down local taxes for schools and public services. If it’s cheating on its responsibilities, it probably has poor moral that would spread to a plant.

Does your wife buy only the most expensive merchandise?

Could be a sign, Yaseen says, that wages are on a rising spiral. A prospective employer doesn’t want that.

Does your town restrict the water of your lawn in the summer? Could be the water supply is not enough for an industry at that crucial time.

Is your town’s school budget skimpy? A prospective employer may be soaked for taxes when more room is needed in your schools, a prospect that doesn’t please him very much.

Of course, there are the main items that all are familiar with – transformation, working force availability and so on. But Fantus concerns itself just as deeply with those other “little things.”

Any woman could guess one more of them.

If a plant owner’s wife decides she doesn’t want to move, the plant will stay right where it is.