By 2011, the reshuffling of military personnel associated with the federal government's Base Realignment and Closure, or BRAC, will bring about 4,700 government jobs to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., just south of the Tennessee state line. The move will obviously benefit Huntsville, a city recently ranked by Forbes magazine as one of America's "Top Business Cities" and which boasts the fifth-highest concentration of computer software-related workers in the country. To be sure, Tennessee is lucky to have a fast-growing, technology-rich city like Huntsville near its border. And it is smart for Tennessee entities to cooperate and align with Huntsville as it has on initiatives including the highly successful Tennessee Valley Corridor.

Most of the BRAC relocation, set to occur between 2008 and 2011, also stands to benefit Tennessee more directly. Some organizations, military personnel and businesses are already moving in, and Huntsville will not be able to handle the expected influx of an additional 12,000 to 15,000 related jobs, everything from engineering contractors to insurance salesmen to bank tellers and short order cooks. Where better for that investment to go than right across the border to business-friendly, income tax-free Tennessee?

Most of the Washington, D.C., area workers making the move to Redstone are already well accustomed to a lengthy commute to work. Operating a business or living in a town like Fayetteville, Tenn., in Lincoln County—as many Redstone Arsenal employees already do—is a viable alternative to these relocating souls. Counties and communities along the Tennessee-Alabama border like Fayetteville will only benefit from BRAC, however, if they go after the opportunities aggressively, and with the strong backing of both state government and the private marketplace. The bottom line is that while cooperation with Huntsville is important, so, too, is competition.

Increasingly in south Central Tennessee there is a sort of "diamond" of economic development taking shape. With Nashville to the north, Huntsville to the south, and Arnold Air Force Base in Tullahoma—with its prospective 800 new jobs and $350 million total economic impact stemming from a soon-to-be-awarded new initiative training airmen in ground survival tactics—to the east, the area is squeezing together to form a development corridor ripe for both public and private investment. Need proof? Huntsville's chamber is already collaborating with Rutherford County officials and other entities, including the UT Space Institute near Tullahoma in a Middle Tennessee Technology Corridor initiative. And the storied Milky Way Farm in Giles County is in part being re-developed as a mixed-use community on the premise that Nashville area executives working in headquarters-rich Williamson County will deem such a pastoral setting worth the hour-long commute.

State officials and business leaders alike must recognize and seize the opportunities this "diamond" offers and bring the financial resources to bear in that part of the state to rival the investment that Huntsville and the State of Alabama are currently putting in. (BusinessTN is aware of at least one significant development taking place in the area with ties to the Busch family of St. Louis.) It's the only way to assure true competition for jobs and investment for Tennessee as a result of BRAC.

Huntsville's good fortune stands to be Tennessee's substantial gain. Rather than be thankful for scraps falling off the table, let's use the state's collective muscle to grab a whole piece of the BRAC pie instead. It's time this particular border development started paying greater dividends for the Volunteer State.

Drew Ruble
Editor

CORRECTIONS: Banks throughout the state must have felt a surge of well-being in December as the opening chart in our 2007 Market Share Report instructed readers that total deposit shares were listed in millions instead of thousands. We encourage those same readers to add three zeros (instead of six) to gain the most precise idea of where our banking institutions stand.