By L.A. Lorek
SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS NEWS BUSINESS WRITER
January 15, 2008

San Antonio is on the finalist list for a 1,500-employee financial services site, and that could mean 2008 will shape up as a good year for the city.

The San Antonio Economic Development Foundation is working on two other projects with more than 1,200 employees each.

Overall, though, the number of companies looking to locate projects here has slowed down since the first half of 2007, said Mario Hernandez, president of the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation.

"Thank goodness for the first six months of the year," Hernandez said. "After the first half of the year, the indicators changed dramatically."

The San Antonio Economic Development Foundation entertained 53 corporate visits during the first six months.

"That is always a great indicator of the level of interest in San Antonio," Hernandez said. But in the final six months, corporate visits slowed to 22.

Companies don't continue their site selection processes if they think there is going to be a downturn in the economy, Hernandez said.

Yet some conflicting information exists, Hernandez said, because the city still continues to see a lot of new companies showing an interest in locating here.

As 2008 dawns, the city has 104 active prospects eyeing projects here, Hernandez said. The bulk of those are in back-office operations, data centers, distribution centers and manufacturing, he said.

In 2007, 18 companies chose to locate sites here, creating 4,500 new jobs, Hernandez said. This is the third consecutive year of a least 4,000 new jobs and fifth consecutive year of more than 3,000 new jobs, he said.

The biggest job creator was Rackspace Managed Hosting. The San Antonio-based Web hosting hosting company pledged to hire 3,000 more local employees and to refurbish the Windsor Park Mall for its new corporate headquarters.

Microsoft Corp. also announced last January plans to build a $550 million data center in Westover Hills. While the project will employ only 100 workers, it raises the profile of the city in the minds of other high-tech companies looking to locate here, Hernandez said.

Another key project was Maxim deciding to expand in San Antonio by adding 300 jobs, Hernandez said. The company makes analog chips here at the old Philips Electronics chip manufacturing plant.

This year, the foundation has 27 marketing trips planned to visit cities nationwide and to spread the word about San Antonio, Hernandez said.

"They are not coming to us, so we're going to go out and find them," he said.

He's still optimistic that 2008 will be a good year and that the foundation will help to locate more than 3,000 new jobs here, Hernandez said.

Toyota's Tundra truck-manufacturing plant continues to pay dividends for the city and to promote it as a great place to do business, said Robert Peche, the city's economic development director.

Currently, Toyota is running an ad featuring a Toyota truck team member sitting in the bed of his Tundra pickup truck with his daughter next to a field. The ad talks about the automaker's investment in San Antonio.

"Every time I see a Toyota ad talking about their investment here, I know that is also a good advertisement for the city," Peche said.

San Antonio's diverse economy will help it weather economic storms nationally in the subprime mortgage and housing crisis, Peche said. The city is much more diversified today with a stronger manufacturing base and a variety of other industries, such as telecommunications, insurance and energy, than a couple of decades ago.

San Antonio has had a lot of successes this year in retaining existing businesses, nurturing small businesses and attracting new ones, Peche said. The city's Economic Development Department leaders met with more than 100 companies this year under its business retention program, he said. It also held several small-business summits to address their needs, he said.

"Overall, I think San Antonio should continue to do well," Peche said.