The Fairfax County Economic Development Authority (FCEDA) in Virginia is seeking a full service public relations firm to promote Fairfax County as one of the world’s best business locations. The FCEDA is charged with encouraging U.S. and foreign-owned businesses to locate to, stay in, and expand in Fairfax County for the purposes of: (1) increasing the county’s non-residential tax revenues, and (2) providing increased quality and varied job opportunities for Fairfax County residents.
Once a rural community and the leading dairy producer in Virginia, by the mid-1970s the county was essentially a suburban bedroom community for the nation’s capital of Washington, D.C. Two-thirds of the county’s residents worked outside the county. Concerned that a growing population alone could not fund needed public services, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors charged the FCEDA with attracting businesses to the county to create jobs and build the commercial tax base. The effort to attract companies and build a commercial tax base has been spectacularly successful.
Today, Fairfax County is home to about 580,000 jobs, more than 8,400 technology firms (in 1998 the county hosted the World Congress on Information Technology), eight Fortune 500 companies and scores of entrepreneurial start-ups, more than 410 foreign-owned firms, a thriving minority business community and a robust investment community. Fairfax County continues to be the home of many government contractors given its proximity to the nation’s capital, but the FCEDA has worked tirelessly to diversify the local economic base by attracting and retaining leading companies in the aerospace, automotive, e-commerce, finance, hospitality, Internet, life sciences, new media, professional and technical services, software and telecommunications fields.
Fairfax County is one of the nation’s largest office markets with more than 116 million square feet of commercial space. Tysons Corner and Reston, Fairfax County’s largest commercial centers, are amongst the largest central business districts in the nation as measured by amount of office space. The PR firm will be tasked with promoting an enhanced quality of life through the attraction of high-quality technology and other employers – large or small, minority and woman-owned, established or start-up, and others to Fairfax County.
Budget is estimated to be $1 Million annually. Padilla-CRT & French-West Vaughan both have Virginia offices.
Proposals are due by May 31st to:
Fairfax County Economic Development Authority
8300 Boone Boulevard, Suite 450
Tysons Corner, Virginia 22182