Good afternoon,
I arrived in Delaware during the tail end of the banking boom, as financial institutions flocked to a state with no limits on credit card interest rates. Office and mixed-use “flex” buildings spun up all over northern New Castle County and were quickly occupied.
According to local lore, State Chamber of Commerce President Bill Wyer and Vice President Blake Wilson keep shovels and other groundbreaking paraphernalia in their trunks. The State Chamber’s newspaper had pages of commercial real estate aids along with “grip and grin” photos of ceremonies that were deemed to be too promotional by an all-powerful pre-Internet News Journal.
The boom came to an abrupt end for reasons that included a decision by a large banking player to halt its aggressive expansion plans in Wilmington. Northern Delaware also ran out of space that could be developed in a hurry. Sprawl and traffic became bigger issues.
The economic activity shows that critics are off base when they describe Delaware as a free-spending, crime-ridden tax hell.
The well-meaning but mind-numbingly complex New Castle County Unified Development Code led to growth shifting to Middletown and points south and west.
With the above-mentioned headwinds, a period running from the 90s and early to mid-2000s turned out to be a less than stellar time that featured the rise of MBNA, the decline of DuPont, and a financial crisis triggered by subprime mortgages sold to investors.
Looking back, the woes of a struggling DuPont largely offset the job impact of MBNA, especially when things slowed down at the credit card giant, which Bank of America eventually snapped up.
Later on, the loss of two auto plants and other sites left precious few high-paying blue-collar manufacturing jobs for those entering the nonconsruction workforce.
Recently, we witnessed a momentum shift as all companies focus on logistics and serving a heavily populated area along Interstate 95.
Today’s newsletter features news on expanding the Fujifilm plant in New Castle, Amazon leasing a long-vacant former DuPont warehouse space in Seaford, and Oregon-based distributor Newacme taking space in a distribution center site near Delaware City. More are in the pipeline.
It wasn’t that long ago that the trio of such announcements would have come over a period of months, not one day.
Granted, the jobs created will not be higher-paid positions at auto plants. Still, the economic activity shows that local critics are off base when they all too often describe Delaware as a free-spending, crime-ridden tax hell.
Delaware faces plenty of challenges that include a legislature overly focused on social justice and far less aware of the need for a strong economy, education inequities, a sagging infrastructure, an over-reliance on corporate fees to finance state operations, and an uncertain recovery from the pandemic.
Still, there are more than a few states and cities that would gladly swap places with us. – Doug Rainey, chief content officer.
