Drumming up Biz in China

The Daily Journal notes a number of mayors, including ours, are planning to visit China to hopefully drum up some local business

Burlingame Mayor Michael Brownrigg and Millbrae Vice Mayor Robert Gottschalk will likely visit Chinese innovation hubs and sources of investment June 16-27. The Silicon Valley Mayors’ Delegation China Trip could be the largest-ever group of American mayors to visit China will further localize and deepen China-California relations to create technology partnerships and seek out business opportunities.

Pending balancing business-related items, Brownrigg is hoping to be able to go. If he does wind up going, he would combine it with business since he doesn’t want Burlingame to have to pay his tab for the trip and doesn’t want to accept gifts from outsiders.

I know Michael has a great deal of experience already doing business in China so he would be a valuable asset to such a trip.  We may need a few people to step up and replace Leland Yee as a go-between!  I have not heard much about the Millenium project at the old Drive-in but that is the most new business square footage that is on the local horizon.

Comments

[Education and Experience]

Joe,

Tenants have to want to be in Burlingame at that location overlooking the airport with it's noise and pollution.

The demand of the existing office stock is not great in that area.

I seriously doubt that the project will go biotech as was originally hoped for.

I was talking with the head of real estate at Genentech on a America's Cup cruise last summer, and she'd never even heard of the Millenium project, despite CBRE's listing to market it to biotech/office in the area.

It would be interesting to get a list of those tenants that have been pitched the concept as a anchor tenant and which tenants have delivered a lease LOI already.

The direct word from a *VERY* relevant source on the listing is that it won't ever get built as office there. What was the projected annual property tax from the project? $1M per year...

So, the CEOs and CFOs and VCs that live in Burlingame either need to step up and steer their companies to be the anchor tenant and follow up tenants or there it will continue to sit as fallow land.

Meanwhile, the planning vision of Burlingame wants to block any chance of apartments, townhouses or condos in that area. Personally, I think that such a development with a new small harbor across where the Coyote Point Beach is would be ideal (we could keep the beach).

Office tenants want Caltrain access!

And here, the voters in Burlingame thought that working in commercial real estate was a bad thing for a city council candidate. Meanwhile, it's probably one of the most relevant backgrounds to offer.

Meanwhile, Burlingame is NOT doing well to attract and retain job-creating companies. Shouldn't this be a top priority for Burlingame City Council?

In fact, 60% of the top 10 employers have LEFT Burlingame since 2011! Why is that? Did anyone try to keep them here? Was anyone even AWARE that they were considering leaving?

Perhaps too much glad-handing and not enough real business expertise and graduate-level business education or real priorities on-board.

According to the City's 2011 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report,[20] the top employers in the city are:

1 Virgin America 2,056
2 Wright Medical Technology 1,200>gone
3 United Natural Foods 555 > gone
4 Critchfield Mechanical 517 > gone
5 California Teachers Association 500
6 Getinge 500 > gone
7 Wine Warehouse 483 > gone
8 Hyatt Regency SFO 467
9 Berkeley Farms 463 > gone
10 ECC 460

We seem to be too busy blocking Safeway's desire to remodel their existing store for 20 years and banning modern architecture (psst, LEED certified is a good thing)

On the bright side, congratulations to Carr McClellan (local law firm) for being the only Burlingame company in San Francisco Business Times' annual "Best Companies to Work For" survey, where they scored a 94.84 out of 100!

I agree, Michael Brownrigg is the best equipped to help Burlingame attract and retain Chinese, American and other global companies to consider Burlingame for their offices, distribution, and retail.

I'd like to see Michael run for County Supervisors in the near future.

[hillsider]

Hey Forrest Gump-

The dumbest idea in town is to put housing out on the bayfront. That's why even the bozos who have been running the town for the last 30 years haven't done it. Even the bozos can figure out it is stupid. You are too stupid to even get out of your own way. You list the noise and pollution that is too much for businesses and then come up with the brilliant idea of putting housing out there. Go buy a shrimp boat, Forrest.

[Education and Experience]

Hillsider,

You're so classy and knowledgeable.

I guess you prefer infill dirt/gravel to stay dirt/gravel forever.

[Fed up]

E&E (AKA AK?):

The conversation about allowing residential development on the east side of 101 goes back many, many years. Not a new idea and many would say not a good idea!!

I suspect Millenium Partners researched demand for office space before spending thousands on designs and entitlements. Maybe they hired the wrong real estate broker. They needed one that went sailing with biotech executives.

I don't remember seeing Berkeley Farms in Burlingame (farms in Burlingame??) or Critchfield Mechanical. Both of those are headquartered elsewhere and I don't know that they have ever been in Burlingame. My guess is that others on your list of sadly departed have never been here either.

Carr McClellan just went through a difficult time where many of its attorneys left to start a new company. Yes kudos to them.

I would like to hear the success stories of Chinese companies moving to town in the last four year since Mr. Brownrigg was elected. What do you base your assessment on? Your inaccurate list tries to prove that companies are fleeing town but then you say a sitting council member is well equipped to attract and retain? Your logic is....well illogical.

Moving forward, I suggest you email a draft of your post to a friend before you submit. If this is your opening salvo for your 2015 campaign, please hire a consultant and spare us all.

[Jerry Brown gets The FInger...again]

Duh, duh, duh...another one bites the dust!

It looks like Toyota is giving "The Jerry Brown Empire" the finger!

I'm throwing in an extra virtual finger to Jerry today.

Yes, folks, as the Super-Majority in Sac legislates with the frenzy of heavier taxes and hundreds of billions in debt and unfunded pension liabilities, successful companies just move their existing jobs and create their new ones where the government is more respectful of the right for successful companies to exist.

http://www.businessinsider.com/toyota-is-moving-its-us-headquarters-from-california-to-texas-2014-4

[Bruce Dickinson]

Guys, do you know what I hear? Two solid cowbell rings for the Burlingame City Council! Between the historical preservation ordinance and a trip to China by none other than Mike Brownrigg, our diplomat extraordinaire, if Bruce Dickinson reads his resume correctly. Rather than taking defeatist attitude (maybe guised as xenophobia perhaps, I detect), about whatever building works, won't work, "dumb" ideas, scaring away businesses, Gov Moonbeam yadda yadda yadda. I gotta tell ya, if I approached life with that attitude, I'd still be hustling vacuum cleaners door to door in the Bronx, but instead, I always looked for the next big thing, and the rest of course, is legend.

Mike Brownrigg is a smart guy, probably enjoys being the big fish in the small pond, but I would be remiss if I didn't say that jumping on a tour of China to drum up business isn't a brilliant idea and he is the perfect guy to do it. Burlingame would do very well to attract the type of capital that China has to offer and the City fits the bill so well in numerous aspects. Hopefully Burlingame can walk the talk and have some tangible deliverables to attract the capital, businesses, and talent. The problem with China is that historically its government suppressed free enterprise for decades but increasing liberalization really allowed the country to unleash the human potential. While still not the USA, the country is on the right track, and quite frankly, maybe China got it right because the country is run by engineers instead of lawyers, and figured out pretty quickly what works and what doesn't.

Get those guys over here and entice them with tax breaks and roll out the red and gold carpet. The benefits of Burlingame will be obvious to them. Who cares that Jerry Brown and his coke-damaged brain can't retain business. That is something this city can exploit and differentiate itself versus other cities that don't know what they're doing and aren't sitting in the middle of Talent Central Station (and no, I'm not talking about that HSR nonsense). Smart engineers from China will figure out the Burlingame formula computes pretty quickly: fantastic location, easy access to travel/airport, world-class access to creative and technological talent, a biotech capital, commercial real estate expansion potential, proximity to top tier universities, fantastic climate, vibrant Asian culture, restaurants, art, wine, etc etc. Burlingame has it all. Should be a very easy sell, now just have to make it economically worth it for the Chinese with real economic enticements, and please put the right people in charge with "can-do" attitudes rather than those who only exhibit xenophobic defeatism and negativity. Good job, City Council and strike the iron while its hot!

[fred]

Office buildings on the former drive-ins site probably won't happen until there is southbound freeway access on Peninsula Ave.

[old-timers]

Don't question the old-timers or else, they'll proudly delay you for 20 years, says Fedup.

Here's the source of the Burlingame Top Employers List:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burlingame,_California

[old-timers]

Here's the same list from the actual Burlingame Comprehensive Financial Report 2011.

https://www.burlingame.org/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=8462

[Bruce Dickinson]

Listen, ya know something you need to learn about this business, little fella? the only thing you CAN assume about a broken down old man,..... is that he is a survivor!

Never question *the* Bruce Dickinson!

[JROC]

The CAFR list is based on business license. If you deliver to Burlingame you are required to obtain a business license so many of these companies are not located in the City. Note that Mills-Penisula and the Burlingame School District are not listed. This is wrong information and needs to be corrected on the City's financial reports.

[fred]

tl;dr

[retain the spirit of brave, free speech and debate]

OK, so I had to look up Fred's translation:

tl;dr = too long; didn't read

We should have a costume party, where all the writers with fake names show up, and we get to meet them in person. BCE fundraiser?

Or, perhaps it should be like a New Orleans Mardi Gras parade where all the fake name writers have extra big heads to match their egos and since that no one else is allowed to have an opinion, but them.

I can't tell if Bruce Dickinson is really Russ Cohen, Joe Baylock or someone else.

I've met many rockstars back when I used to produce concerts at Northwestern, and none of them would ever write like the BD here, so rest assured it is a fake identity.

Personally, I enjoy using the name box as the title for my comments.

Bruce,

Age, whether young or old is often mostly relevant from an attitude perspective.

I'm working with a guy on some political activity who has the maturity of a 40 year old, but he's only 23. We'd like to produce a monthly live music series called "Liberty On The Rocks". I hope that you'll enjoy the music, fun and content in the near future. Free speech, individual rights, and elimination of government corruption and bullying will be the focus.

On the flipside, one can be 85 and "retain the spirit of youth".

The positive side of youthfulness is really a combination of energy/engagement in what's going on, intellectual curiosity, questioning the status quo, and a passion for life and exploring new ideas, places and people.

And, questioning and debate would seem to be positive in society and an inherent benefit of this blog and of free speech in general - this is not a defeatist attitude, but rather an intellectual, youthful attitude. I understand the cost and benefit of exercising our country's support of free speech, so I don't need advice from big egos in town to suppress it.

Burlingame's weakness is essentially the "stick in the mud" folks that don't want any of the positive aspects of youth to upset their egos, which includes nothing ever changing.

This weakness is also called Hubris, and it's often the downfall of any person or organization:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris

It's our town's Hubris that let's corruption and crime exist right under our noses with ease, at the same moment that curmudgeons think they're on a divine mission to prevent Safeway from remodeling an existing store for 20 years.

At the same time, I have the utmost respect for actual older people who I know or just meet in day-to-day life.

You'll notice how the content and usefulness of other blogs in Burlingame is very different like The BurlingameLinked group on LinkedIn or the www.nextdoor.com group. The difference is that these other, newer groups require that each writer use their real name and thus they are accountable for their statements.

I appreciate the advantage of anonymity, which might encourage the "free speech" that Joe and other owners of this blog seem to periodically encourage.

Ultimately, we are all neighbors and thus we share a bit of our lives with each other everyday.

Without free and brave debate of policy, society slips back to feudalism again.

[Russ]

Bruce is not Russ Cohen. I always post under my own name. Nothing to hide here. But feel free to refer to me as "The" Russ Cohen.:-)

[Bruce Dickinson]

Russ, don't sell yourself short, while we have not met in person, I have heard such dynamite things about you from my sources and staff, I would be remiss in not saying that you are this community's real "cock of the walk" and the Burlingame Voice is a dynamite site!

And coming from me (legendary Columbia PRODUCER Bruce Dickinson, not Iron Maiden Bruce Dickinson, not to take away from his talent though...two different people folks), that means a lot!

AK has got what appears to be a low hit rate in getting thigs right, but that's ok he IS right that this site is about free expression and speech so we can teach him, together. Just keep it constructive and keep the diapers off fellas, put on some big boy pants and let's make some music!

[longwong]

Hai Guyz ; - ) hahhahaa, AK ur bashing everyone & giving a lecture on hubris??? since ur into all things Greek here ya go

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocrisy

! :P and NO not everyone on here is 80 yrs old T.U. very much... I take it ur arent too given maturity & so sensittive waaaahh waaaahhhh waaaah waaaaaahhhhh

I love, love, LOVE bruceyD & wow great career & u can tell from dat post he did on repetition
http://www.burlingamevoice.com/2014/04/historic-building-progress.html#comments

...frigging blew me away ;-(0) dont spoil the interestin stuff man & lay off with da toxicity!

TTFN :-/

[jennifer]

Fred-
ts;osw
[too short; only scroll-worthy]