Concord among nation’s 10 fastest-growing cities

Oct 18, 2016

International Business Park at Concord is located in the heart of a dynamic region that is experiencing a fast pace of growth. According to a recent WalletHub study, Concord ranks as the ninth overall fastest-growing city and the third fastest-growing small city in the U.S. WalletHub analysts compared 515 U.S. cities on 14 factors of rapid economic growth from 2009 to 2015. Factors included population growth, unemployment rate decreases, job growth, growth in regional GDP per capita and business number growth. When broken down by size, Charlotte ranked third in the large-city category. The Charlotte Business Journal offered a look at how Concord and Charlotte fared in several categories of the study: Population growth: Concord, 7th; Charlotte, 35th Job growth: Concord, 33rd; Charlotte, 24th Poverty rate decrease: Concord, 124th; Charlotte, 185th Regional GDP growth: Concord, 96th; Charlotte, same Growth in number of businesses: Concord, 1st; Charlotte, same Full-time jobs increase: Concord, 65th; Charlotte, 248th Working-age population growth: Concord, 13th; Charlotte, 59th The study helps emphasize International Business Park’s tremendous and lucrative opportunities for the service, retail, office and hospitality industries. While small clusters of restaurants and shops can be found within a few minutes, there is a major unmet need for shopping, dining and hospitality options at Exit 55 – one of the busiest interchanges in the state. Additionally, there are 3,100 people employed at the 30 companies located within in the IBP, including Fortune 500 corporations and numerous international companies that often bring out-of-town guests to the park. Phase III of the IBP offers nearly 50 acres of prime mixed-use land situated just off the intersection of I-85...