Matthew Santoni, The Examiner
2007-09-13 07:00:00.0
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Harford County -

Harford County faces steeper competition than anticipated for the defense contractors coming as a result of military growth at Aberdeen Proving Ground, a new study says.

About 7,230 defense contractor jobs will follow the military functions moving to Aberdeen Proving Ground, but where they will settle depends on available office space and decisions by the contractors moving, said Anirban Basu, author of the Sage Policy Group study.

“The big wild card here has been, where will the defense contractor tail locate?” Basu said. “Everybody says they have the resources to attract them.”

Under current plans for development, Harford will run out of available office space by 2009, Basu said, prompting more contractors to move to Cecil and Baltimore counties.

“If Cecil County can build office space between now and 2010, they can get more of those jobs,” he said.

And if Harford fails to undertake necessary water sewer investments projects, the county could lose potential jobs, he said.

Baltimore City officials believe they may be poised to gain jobs because of their proximity to Interstate 95, but Basu predicted the city wouldn’t get a significant share of the commercial real estate growth from the APG-related moves.

“The city is a bit far removed from the centrality of the growth, but Fort Meade may have a larger impact,” he said. Fort Meade is also gaining jobs in the last round of the Base Realignment and Closure, but was not covered in Basu’s study.

Several new projects have been put into the pipeline, including a 55-acre office park in Aberdeen just outside APG’s main gate.

State officials emphasize a cooperative, regional approach to enticing BRAC contractors, so competition for the jobs hasn’t been pronounced, said J. Thomas Sadowski, executive vice president of the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore.

“The phrase that keeps getting bandied around is that there’s enough to go around,” he said.

msantoni@baltimoreexaminer.com