The Marin Economic Forum (MEF) expects business activity in 2020 to remain at similar levels as 2019, with the potential risks being lack of an outcome in the existing trade disputes and the uncertainty of a presidential election that could affect firms serving markets outside of Marin County.
Regionally, the Bay Area is expected to continue growth. That means Marin companies competition for labor will persist. Increasing costs for office space in traditional markets might be an opportunity for Marin to secure relocations like we saw in 2019.
As part of the “Marin County Business Retention & Expansion” project MEF has identified the constraints companies will be managing in 2020, as well as the opportunities for growth they will pursue.
The threat of recession, post-fire recovery, rising minimum wage, job growth and even a 2020 presidential election prediction were touched on during economist Robert Eyler’s presentation Thursday at the 20th annual North State Economic Forecast Conference.
Right off the bat, Eyler told a packed room at the Sheraton in Redding that economic experts are predicting a recession will not hit before 2022.
When the lights go out, your business is dead in the water, right?
No, it isn’t.
This is 2019, and for many companies, disaster-recovery planning and remote working can allow them to continue a normal tempo of business despite disasters.
As companies continue to squeeze into the already crowded confines of San Francisco and Silicon Valley, some turn further north instead, attracted by a different lifestyle, cheaper rents and breezier commutes.
One of those companies is Gemini Data, which moved from San Francisco’s Presidio to the Drake’s Landing office complex in Greenbrae last summer. CEO and founder Tony Ayaz singled out the availability of commercial real estate and better pricing compared with San Francisco as a major factor in the decision to move north.
On Friday June 21, 2019 State Senator Mike McGuire (D-District 2) addressed the MEF Board of Directors meeting held at BioMarin, San Rafael, to provide an update on several key issues for the California and Marin economy. California’s significant role in the world economy (ranked 5th) is well known but most residents may not understand how that relates to funding for public goods and services.
Before Nucleo Life Sciences relocated from San Francisco to San Rafael in the summer of 2016, cofounders Mark Menning and Lara Park Menning had considered other locations throughout the Bay Area.
“We were really looking for a place where we could grow and our employees could get a nice life-work balance as well,” said Lara Park Menning, whose pharmaceutical company employs 15 people, 10 of whom are based in San Rafael.
The Bay Area is the most expensive place in the world to build an apartment building, office tower, hospital, warehouse or school.
And it’s not even close — the region is 13 percent more costly to develop than second-place New York, according to a new report by UK-based consultant Turner & Townsend.
“Another dubious award for the Bay Area,” said Russell Hancock, CEO of the non-partisan, regional think-tank Joint Venture Silicon Valley.
The report blamed high costs on a combustible mixture of high demand, labor shortages, steel tariffs and rapid economic growth.
Even as the expanding Bay Area economy demands more homes, offices, roads and transit projects, rising costs could threaten development, forcing project delays or changes in size and scope.
Low unemployment rates in Marin County and across the state and country are creating difficulties for employers to attract and retain new talent and high costs of living foster other challenges, according to presenters at a conference put on by Marin Economic Forum.
Presenters at Tuesday’s event put on by the nonprofit economic development organization in San Rafael included Robert Eyler, director of the Center for Regional Economics at Sonoma State University, and Craig Nelson, who chairs the San Rafael-based Nelson Family of Companies.
No recession before 2020 at the earliest and higher Marin home prices in 2019 were among the predictions made at an event sponsored by the Marin Economic Forum this week.
“Right now it seems unlikely that we would have a recession before the end of 2020,” said professor Robert Eyler, head of the economics department at Sonoma State University and the forum’s chief economist.
“I think next year will be a little trickier,” he said. “In 2021, I’m not sure yet; the clouds have yet to part for me.”
An estimated 300 people turned out for the breakfast meeting Tuesday at Embassy Suites Hotel in San Rafael. Eyler spoke to the Independent Journal about his findings on Wednesday.
