NewHavenBIZ

6 n e w h a v e n B I Z | M a r c h / A p r i l 2 0 1 9 n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m T R E N D I N G B E Y O N D T H E H E A D L I N E S In battle of mid-sized New England cities, we lose A side from Boston, New En- gland has no major cities. In- stead southern New England has a half-dozen mid-sized (125,000 to 200,000) burgs that vie for love and attention. But among Bridgeport, Hart- ford, New Haven, Providence, Springfield and Worcester, which can claim bragging rights? Well, Worcester's the largest (look it up), Hartford's the smallest (though the only state capital), while New Hav- en and Providence can duke it out for most heavenly Italian cuisine. But as economic engines, which are the most and least productive? According to an analysis by Peo- ple's United Bank Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Of- ficer John S. Traynor, Connecticut's three largest cities lag their Bay State and Ocean State peers in both growth of real GDP and personal income over the last decade by a wide margin. row in northern New England metro areas includ- ing Manchester-Nashua, N.H. and Portland, Me., and the discrepancy grows even more yawning. "Connecticut's decline since the year before the recession [2007] has been terrible," Traynor says. Comparing real GDP growth between 2007 and 2017, only three New England metro areas recorded negative growth: New Haven (a 9.0-percent GDP decline), Hartford (down 6.4 percent) and Bridge- port-Stamford, which posted a 9.4-percent decline for the decade. All other metro areas in the six- state New England region posted positive GDP growth numbers for 2007-2017: Providence (up 5 per- cent), Springfield (up 7.4 percent), Worcester (a 12.3-percent gain) and Manchester-Nashua, N.H., where real GDP soared by 17 percent for the decade. Paced by Boston's GDP growth of 18.7 percent for the period, the average rate for the six- state region was 8.6 percent — even factoring in Connecticut's numbers. en there is personal income. During the 2017 stock-market run- up following the surprise election of Donald Trump to the White House, all U.S. states saw an average 3.1-percent growth in personal income for the year, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Connecticut's gain was just 1.5 percent, ranking it 44th out of 50 states. Measuring wages and salaries alone, Connecticut ranked 49th. n Decline since recession Real GDP growth by metro area 2007-17 Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis U.S. New England 15.5% 8.6% Springfield Worcester Boston Manchester-Nashua Providence Portland New York metro Philly metro Bridgeport-Stamford Hartford New Haven -9.4% -6.4% -9% 7.4% 12.3% 18.7% 17% 5% 9.7% 10.3% 12.1% Why the tennis tourney failed W hen big-time profession- al tennis arrived in New Haven in 1991, it seemed like (not to mix metaphors) a slam-dunk. A glitzy August idyll that would attract top professionals to tune up the week before the U.S. Open (on the same playing surface, no less). Corporate sponsors competing to woo clients with lavish hospitality tents, while. scores of moneyed swells from Fairfield County filled the seats. It never quite worked out that way, and last month it all came crashing down when the tour- nament's sanction was sold to a group that would move the event to Zhengzhou City, China. What made it fail aer nearly three decades of hard work and best intentions? Was it hubris, or what one city official has called "the almost cartoonish overreaching of this small town to create something that didn't make sense"? Or were the reasons more...mechanical? Two fundamental causes stand out: • Size matters — At 13,000 seats, the Connecticut Tennis Center was too big for the event, and too big for New Haven. e inability to fill those seats created the appear- ance of failure. And the appearance of failure created...actual failure. Recalls Matthew Nemerson, who was president of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce at the time, "When Jim Westhall [who owned the event then known as the Volvo International] came to us and said he needed a 15,000-seat stadium, I went to the chamber board and said, "is makes absolutely no sense. ere isn't a [tennis] stadium in this country outside New York that's larger than 8,000 seats.'" Nemerson's logic did not prevail, and others in the business com- munity were seduced by Westhall's visions of sugarplums. Twenty million taxpayer dollars later New Haven had the second-largest tennis facility in the country. "We overbuilt, and it made peo- ple feel that we weren't successful because it was so hard to fill. We needed an SUV and we bought a Greyhound bus. And people kept saying, 'Why don't you have any passengers?'" Tournament Ddi- rector Anne Worcester, who arrived in New Haven in 1998 fresh from running the Women's Tennis Asso- ciation (WTA), doesn't take issue with the size issue, and points to physical limitations of the Connecticut Tennis Center. "I would never have been a part of building a 13,000-seat facility — one with with no sponsor hospi- tality, no kitchen, no elevators, a video board that was obsolete in 10 minutes — it was tremendously expensive for any promoter to put on a world-class tennis tournament in that facility because we have to spend $500,000 on temporary infrastructure year in and year out," Worcester explains. "at was the biggest challenge of the tourna- ment, for sure." • Who's your daddy? — Aer title sponsor Pilot Pen le in 2010, no single corporate or institutional player was signed in blood to make the event go. In the 1990s local banks and the phone company lined up to throw money at the tournament as an opportunity to woo customers. "But once the banks were no longer local, once SNET wasn't in business any more, there was nobody that was willing to give out thousands of complimentary tickets and buy people lunch and a gin- and-tonic and make it an experi- ence," Nemerson says. "at's what sports is all about — the corporate experience. "If it weren't for Yale and [Yale New Haven] hospital, which were the next [sponsorship] level down from the title sponsor, there was very little New Haven [corporate] investment," especially aer Pilot Pen le in 2010," Worcester says. "It's a challenging market because the corporate community is so small." n Tourney head Worcester.

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