Stadtmauer Bailkin Biggins team (from left) included Becky Zane, Joe Lacy, Andy Shapiro and Jay Biggins, with cosponsor Elliott Farber of Equis (center).

SBB's commitment to a sustainable business model is outside-the-box thinking.

The triple bottom line is usually associated with major companies. So when a smaller firm practicing around the basic dynamics of location economies commits itself to people, profit and planet - and can demonstrate meaningful impact to clients and community - the combination is notable.

SBB specializes in location analysis, economic development strategies, incentives and site selection but its approach to serving corporate and state or local economic development interests sets it apart from many of the industry's other location consultants. It's a key reason why SBB is a finalist for the Global Innovator's Award, the first-ever location firm to gain the designation.

"We're engrained in our work," SBB President Jay Biggins told the panel of award judges about its interdisciplinary mix of legal, planning, finance and labor market experts. "SBB develops innovative strategies to create value for our clients, their employees and their communities."

SBB Managing Director Andy Shapiro joined in the presentation of a case that proves Biggins' point. The firm led an initiative to clean four dormant brownfield sites in New Jersey owned by Hercules Inc., which operated chemical plants and munitions dumps there.

"SBB developed a portfolio-wide strategy to reposition or redevelop these sites, quickly enabling the most market-ready sites to generate resources to invest in the redevelopment potential of the longer-lead properties," Shapiro says.

The largest of the properties is the 1,100-acre Kenvil Works site in Roxbury Township, where Hercules made explosives. Fears over environmental effects led to a ban on redevelopment in the township - as was the case with other brownfields, which were deemed 'off limits' to future development by the NJ State Development Plan and the so-called "Highlands" legislation.

SBB envisioned a solution with multiple benefits and started with a campaign to build "bottom-up community consensus" to educate the public on the sustainable development assets attainable through the remediation of the Kenvil site, Shapiro explains.

"We stepped out of the box and did something different," emphasizes Biggins, drawing attention to how SBB communicated the linkage between the public and private benefits of redeveloping the site. "We wanted to connect innovation through process, not (finished) product."

That connection came through a multi-tiered approach to advocacy, which allowed all parties to "take a step back from potentially adversarial positions and to development a common vision for the property," Biggins says.

• Public education programs with civic groups and public officials
• Using a non-partisan market research firm to poll resident on their views and opinions
• Developing analytics to demonstrate the positive fiscal and economic impacts of a market-based approach to redevelopment

• The Highlands bill was amended to designate the site as "receiving area" in which development is to be concentrated so surrounding areas can be preserved
• The site has been approved for a new commuter rail stations to augment interstate and local highway access, and includes a wastewater treatment system and wells yielding two million gallons of potable water per day
• Conceptual plans for mixed-use development are being prepared for community input

While the Kenvil project illustrates SBB ability to deliver value to the "Planet" piece of the triple bottom line, it also showed how it addresses the "People" and "Profit" side of the equation.

Biggins presented cases showing three other innovative approaches to economic development-based solutions that are working for corporate clients, their employees, and respective communities. The need for new statutory allowances to include contract employment in outdated job retention incentives was one. New Jersey revised its definition, and Mellon Financial Corp. moved 900 suburban-based jobs to Jersey City as a result. Then, SBB went on to Connecticut, North Carolina, Florida and Texas, where it also helped win the case for retooled incentives designed to facilitate new, flexible staffing models that are becoming more predominant in today's 'work anywhere, any time' economy.

The firm illustrated its success in these other areas through cases involving JP Morgan Chase in both Tampa FL and Farmers Branch TX. The latter was named a winner of the 2005 CoreNet Global Economic Development Leadership Award. It also presented a scenario involving localities in and around Tampa that worked together to create incentives to compete for and land a major operations center for the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. The effort resulted in 500 high-wage jobs and a $25-million capital investment. "It also galvanized Tampa's emerging status as 'Wall Street South,'" Biggins adds.

By taking a different view of how location and incentives consultants can influence positive change, SBB is addressing the triple bottom line concept in a leading-edge way, at the same time creating a business model that will sustain the firm while benefiting corporate and public sectors clients, employees, and communities.

As Biggins notes: "The benefits of economic development can be widely shared."