Today I attended the Brentwood/Cool Springs Chamber of Commerce monthly membership luncheon. Guest speaker was Ralph Schulz, President & CEO, Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce. It was quite informative.
President Schulz feels that if “greater Nashville” is going to continue to grow and attract companies, Nashville, together with the surrounding cities, needs to start thinking “regionally.” Thus, the Nashville chamber has formed a mayoral caucus to focus primarily on regionalizing the greater Nashville area, including the implementation of a transit system.
He made a projection that within the next 5-10 years, gas is going to go to $5-7 a gallon, which will be devastating to our area without a good transit system in place. The mayoral caucus hopes to be able to put a plan in place that will generate federal funding assistance. Schulz also indicated the growth in Nashville is also going to hinge on major redevelopment, i.e., Convention Center, Fairgrounds, May Center.
Another piece of good news Schulz delivered was that the relocation activity, which had been very slow lately, has now doubled. The Greater Nashville Area went from having 10-15 companies with low employee count on the radar screen to over 30 companies considering relocating to Nashville TN. This is fantastic news for employment as 5 of these companies have projected to bring 1,000 or more jobs to the area.
The chairperson for the Brentwood TN Susan G. Komen event on Saturday, Tina Hamilton, attended the meeting today and reported the contributions rendered by the Race for the Cure were at $1.4 million… and still counting. This is incredible!! SO glad I was there and was a part of this event.
