Once upon a time, in the late 1980s, a group called the Hospital Association of Pennsylvania built its suburban ideal in Swatara Township. Plenty of surface parking. Fun stores and restaurants nearby. Accessible to highways and airport. Even for a statewide association, the struggling capital city wasn’t seen as a good home.

Fast-forward 27 years. Government has gained prominence in a complex health care system. Seeking proximity to lawmakers, what is now the Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania is moving back into Harrisburg proper, where—surprise—there’s convenient parking and fun stores and restaurants nearby.

“To be six miles away from the center of decision-making for Pennsylvania struck me as a lost opportunity to be both visible and accessible to policymakers who are asking hundreds of questions about health care,” said HAP President and CEO Andy Carter, who helped lead the board in making the move. “I want to be there when they ask those questions so we can give our answer as part of their due diligence.”

Nationwide, businesses have been pulling up stakes from suburban campuses or outlying spots and resettling into cities. Likewise, businesses here increasingly are making high-profile moves from the ‘burbs to the ‘Burg. Of course, finances drive the decisions, but so do proximity to power, attracting talent to remain competitive, and commitments to rebuilding the urban hub that powers the region.

“We think we’re stepping into a very rich, diverse field that will accrue many benefits,” said Carter.

Love the Location

This month, HAP moves into a building on 3rd Street, in the shadow of the Capitol dome. Meanwhile, later in August, health care data analyst Geneia will leave its cramped Swatara Township digs to take occupancy in the resurrected Capitol View Commerce Center on Cameron Street. In fact, that building has been renamed “World Trade Center Harrisburg” in honor of its eponymous anchor tenant, which is moving in this fall from York.

And that’s not all. Last year, analytics firm VisiQuate left Rossmoyne to take up one floor of a rehabbed 19th-century mansion. And Chemical Solutions, Ltd., left its overcrowded Mechanicsburg quarters for a former plasma donation center at Herr and 7th streets.

VisiQuate grabbed the opportunity to lease space in the circa-1804 mansion at 111 N. Front Street “because we just loved the location,” said President JK Kolmansberger. With three offices in the United States and two in Eastern Europe, VisiQuate was accustomed to the amenities and convenience of working and hosting clients in urban settings. From Rossmoyne, “it was always a bit of a hassle to get our employees and clients close to where hotels are,” said Kolmansberger.

VisiQuate spotted the national and worldwide trend to reoccupy cities, but Kolmansberger said he hesitated to move into Harrisburg before recovery took hold. Now, “people are starting to come back downtown and are starting to see the city in a better place.”

Geneia left business park space where employees were working “two and three to an office,” or assigned to working from home solely for lack of room, said CEO Mark Caron.

“Many of them are very anxious for the new building,” he said. “It’s cool to have the flexibility to work at home, but it’s also really important to have a connection with teams.”

As needs of the workforce evolve, operating in the city offers businesses “access to an even more diverse potential workforce,” said Carter. People leaving state government for the private or nonprofit sectors “don’t have to change location,” and convenient access from the entire midstate will attract talent from all parts of the region, he said.

Once, Carter led a nonprofit located next to the statehouse in Columbus, Ohio. There, he often struck up “serendipitous conversations” just by “stumbling into the speaker of the House or secretary of human services,” he said. But from the suburbs, HAP often had to ration the trips allowed into Harrisburg.

Moving the organization to 3rd and Walnut streets, catty-corner to the Capitol complex, allows his organization to “take advantage of the stone’s-throw location,” attending more hearings, “more readily scheduling pick-up meetings” with state officials, and enticing busy lawmakers to events.

The location also could make it convenient for visiting HAP members to “tack on some visits” with state officials and lawmakers.

“We want to strengthen the relationship between our members and the policymakers who are helping us to shape the delivery system of the future,” Carter said.

Fun Town

Like Geneia, Chemical Solutions, Ltd., left cramped space.

“We were literally moving people out of their offices to move new instruments in,” said President Brian LaBine, who moved his company into customized space straddling downtown and Midtown Harrisburg.

Many of Chemical Solutions’ employees are chemists who appreciate Harrisburg’s balance of urban environment with livability, he said. One “wonderful chemist” moved from Delaware, where “the cost-of-living differential” was substantial.

“We think Harrisburg is going in the right direction,” LaBine said. “It’s a fun town. We like the Midtown area. Being able to walk out the door and walk to the Broad Street Market or Jackson House is perhaps a nice combination of having that city feel that some of the younger generation really likes, yet not having the traffic or the prices that come with relocating to, say, Philadelphia or a larger city.”

Geneia competes for skilled talent in the “pretty tight” analytics field, said Caron. Its new space offers the “creature features” that tech-oriented people expect, including a healthy café, treadmill desks, a fitness center, “open space for people to ideate,” and high-tech videoconferencing.

“As a techy and nerd, you want the latest software tools to build the latest products,” he said. “You want an organization that’s invested in its people.”

At any technology company, “you’ll find we don’t work 9 to 5,” said Kolmansberger.

Potential hires want to work wherever they can get the job done, whether from home or on a bench by the river, and the new space is “a very functional, high-tech office that our employees find very comfortable and useful. If you need to have a client in for a meeting, it shows very well. Clients like to come here because it’s a bright, cheery office that overlooks the river.”

Downtown sites also create proximity to learning opportunities that help employees grow and that cultivate future talent, especially through internships with Harrisburg University of Science and Technology students. In Swatara Township, HAP was isolated from downtown’s “rich mix of professionals” at universities and advocacy organizations, Carter said.

“Especially, since we think of ourselves as the leading edge of the trend, we hope that more of others in this world will consider moving downtown, as well, and then we’re going to have an even richer environment,” he said.

Part of the Solution

Though the business factors driving their decisions vary, the resettlers agree that helping rebuild a once-shattered city was on their minds. Access to “the best possible workforce” only comes from providing a competitive working and living environment, with quality housing, schools, health care and amenities, “and you aren’t going to get all that if you don’t have enough people who are being hired and brought into the city,” said Carter. Metropolitan areas “struggle to thrive if the city center is withering.”

“In many ways, by moving downtown, along with many other businesses, we’re showing our cards that we believe in the health of the city, and, in promoting its health by working down there and bringing its employees and their pocketbooks into the city, that we’re going to be creating a stronger future for the city,” he said

Chemical Solutions is showing its passion for education with plans to host local students in science and chemistry activities. Employees have helped a Friends of Midtown neighborhood cleanup. The business itself, under the leadership of Technical Director Francine Walker, takes pride in “taking a formerly dormant building, vacant for six years, and transforming it,” said LaBine

“We’re definitely attracted to the concept of urban renewal,” he said. “We’ve loved the decision since the day we made it.”

Geneia has “a real conscience in investing in the community,” said Caron, and the firm has found strong partners in the effort. World Trade Center Harrisburg developer John Moran “has been incredibly accommodating,” and the tax incentives for settling in a Keystone Opportunity Zone are “an attraction to a small start-up where you can save on taxes and put those dollars to other uses investing in people.”

In Kolmansberger’s travels, he finds that “the best areas always have strong downtown life and strong city life and good hotels and good restaurants.” He wanted the same for his clients and employees. Harrisburg, he said, “is definitely a city that is on the rebound.”

“I can sit out in the suburbs and complain that Harrisburg isn’t recovering fast enough or Harrisburg doesn’t have enough good restaurants,” he said. “Or I can try to be part of the solution, and that’s by bringing business to the city and embracing our capital city and embracing the business environment in downtown Harrisburg. That’s ultimately what I decided to do, and I found a good location in the middle of everything.”

Author: M. Diane McCormick

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