City working to lure young professionals

Three well-known civic groups are teaming up to help Huntsville plug an alarming leak of young professionals to more exciting cities.

This morning, officials from the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce, Arts Council Inc. and Committee of 100 announced they have hired Carol Coletta, a Memphis consultant and radio host, to draft a plan for luring more workers in their 20s and 30s here.

Coletta's hiring comes less than two months after a University of Alabama in Huntsville study showed the city struggles to attract and keep young workers. In 1990, people in their 20s accounted for just over 18 percent of metro Huntsville's population - more per capita than Birmingham, Montgomery, Nashville and Charlotte, N.C., the study found. By 2000, that figure had dipped to 13 percent - dead last among Huntsville's "peer cities" in the Southeast.

If Huntsville's pool of young scientists, engineers and software designers goes dry, the city could lose its place as a leading technology center.

"It's important to everyone that we have a continuing supply of young workers to keep our engine running, or else we won't continue to enjoy the high standard of living we've come to expect," developer Scott McLain, former chairman of the Committee of 100, said Tuesday.

Coletta's study, he said, should tell the city "what our image is (with young professionals) and what our target audience wants."

The emphasis on young people doesn't mean the city is abandoning the "seasoned workers" who made Huntsville what it is today, McLain said during a press conference in Big Spring International Park.

Coletta, an expert on "smart" growth and downtown redevelopment, is no rookie. Memphis turned to her when it wanted to learn how to regain its swagger with young professionals. Last year, she helped oversee the writing of the "Memphis Manifesto," a blueprint for encouraging creativity and diversity in cities. One of its tenets: Cities should foster arts and culture, nightlife, the local music scene and homegrown restaurants.

While Huntsville rates high with families, its dull-after-dark reputation is a turnoff for many young, unmarried professionals. Often, they flee to a bigger city with a better singles scene - Nashville, Birmingham, Atlanta - after gaining job experience here.

Huntsville Hospital chief Joe Austin, the chamber's vice chairman of work force development, said Huntsville can't afford to let recent graduates of UAH, Alabama A&M University and Oakwood College slip away. A "huge number" of older workers will be retiring from Redstone Arsenal and local defense contractors in the next decade, Austin said, and someone has to fill those jobs.

McLain said Huntsville ought to borrow ideas from another high-tech mecca - Austin, Texas. Its downtown is packed with locally owned restaurants, music clubs and funky shops - things that young, college-educated workers say they crave. The thriving capital city also found a niche for all its scientific know-how: making computer chips.

Huntsville is trying to break out of its conservative mold. Last month, the nonprofit Arts Council released its ideas for enlivening downtown. Imagine eating lunch in a sculpture garden, watching local painters hawk their creations in an "art mall," or seeing "Romeo and Juliet" performed at an outdoor amphitheater.

Coletta, who hosts a public radio show called Smart City, plans to spend the next two months thinking about Huntsville. She will analyze what young workers say they like and dislike about the city, compare Huntsville with similar-size cities for jobs and suggest ways to improve the city's standing with 22- to 34-year-olds.

She has already started interviewing corporate recruiters and will be here in mid-May to chat with restaurant and nightclub owners, young workers, students, elected leaders, CEOs, academics and city planners.

Her report is due in early July. The chamber, Committee of 100 and Arts Council are each paying one-third of Coletta's consulting fee, which officials declined to reveal.

Robert Lane, chairman of the Arts Council board, said all three groups are committed to implementing Coletta's ideas. "It's the type of thing that can really change our city," he said.