A major marketing company will relocate to Howard County, bringing hundreds of jobs to the area, County Executive Ken Ulman announced Tuesday.
“I am told some of the other cities trying to lure Merkle were Denver, Seattle, Atlanta, Boston, but they chose Columbia,” he said in his State of the County address to the Howard Chamber of Commerce.
Merkle, a database marketing company that provides business strategies to companies and nonprofits, will move its headquarters from Lanham in Prince George?s County to Columbia Gateway.
“Our new headquarters will place Merkle in an area with a strong talent base of highly skilled professionals and will provide ample room to accommodate our future growth plans,” Merkle President and CEO David Williams said in a statement.
The company?s new building is expected to be complete in June 2008.
Trammel Crow Co., also announced plans to build a seven-story, 200,000-square-foot building in Gateway with rentable space for businesses. Construction will begin this summer, company officials said.
These two business developments signal that Howard “is now and will continue to be a great place to do business,” Ulman said.
The county has enjoyed the lowest unemployment rate in the state for the past two years. In 2006, the rate was 2.8 percent, Ulman said.
Further adding to job growth is the federal base realignment, which should bring more than 5,700 jobs to Fort Meade by 2011. Another 3,000 to 5,000 contractor positions and thousands more support jobs are expected to come to the area, county officials said.
“Certainly the business community will enjoy tremendous opportunities, and the county?s economy will reflect that growth,” Ulman said.
However, the positive economic picture has challenges. The county faces the significant challenges of transportation, housing and land-use pressures with the BRAC growth, Ulman said.
As he works to prepare the budget, difficult funding decisions will have to be made when it comes to balancing priorities such as police department staffing and capital improvements, he said.
