Website ranks Cartersville a top place to do business in Georgia

June 10, 2015

Cartersville has been named one of the top 15 places in Georgia to start a business by personal finance website NerdWallet.com.

The city was ranked 12th of 126 locations in the state in the feature “Best Places to Start a Business in Georgia.” To be considered, each location was required to have at least 500 businesses and populations of no less than 5,000. Released on Monday, the website’s analysis took into account a number of factors, including average revenue of local businesses, percentage of local businesses with paid employees, businesses per 100 people, median annual income, median annual housing costs and unemployment rate.

Cartersville Mayor Matt Santini said the ranking is simply the result of an ongoing commitment to making the city amenable to businesses.

“Anytime, I think, you’re put in the spotlight, when you’re towards to the top of a list that they’re using comparable data to match us up with other cities and you come out ranked as well as we did, I think you’ve got to be pleased with that outcome. I think for a long time the city has aimed to provide an atmosphere that’s conducive to business,” he noted.

Bartow County Commissioner Steve Taylor, who was the owner of Taylor Farm Supply in Cartersville for many years before assuming his current position, pointed out that the local community has consistently provided a healthy climate for entrepreneurship.

“This community’s always been easy to do business with. And I think that just having a pro-business environment throughout the city and the county helps a lot with new businesses coming in,” he said. “The cost of doing business in Cartersville and Bartow County is really low as far as our community compared to other communities throughout the state, and I think that helps a lot with companies wanting to come in and do business here in our community.”

So what exactly makes Cartersville a good place to do business? Taylor said that can be attributed to numerous factors.

“We have an easy permitting process here. Our taxes [are] generally low compared to other communities and we have a great economic development department willing to assist and help. [The Cartersville-Bartow County Chamber of Commerce has] done really a good job over the years, and so we’ve really got a strong business climate here in this community. That may not be the same in other communities. And quite frankly, I’m surprised that we were No. 12. I think we should be No. 1 as far as [ease of doing] business and No. 1 as far as business recruiting.”

Taylor isn’t the only one who was surprised by the ranking. Cartersville-Bartow County Department of Economic Development Director Melinda Lemmon also expressed her belief that the city should have been ranked more highly than it was.

“This is an interesting ranking for Cartersville,” stated Lemmon via email. “Knowing how strategic the Chamber of Commerce and other community partners are in being business and entrepreneur friendly, I’m surprised that the ranking is not higher. This certainly provides accolades to those organizations that support new businesses, and hopefully encourages them to keep up the great work.”

Taylor believes that the community will indeed continue to thrive as more businesses continue to grow the local job market.

“I think we will continue to see a trend of growth,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of job opportunities coming up ... in fact, somewhere probably between three and four thousand new industrial-type jobs coming up within the next two to four years. And so that’s going to bring in large payrolls into our community, so small businesses will really benefit from that as far as the capital flowing throughout our community.”

Santini added that Cartersville is likely to continue its upward economic trend as outsiders take notice of the city and what it has to offer, not only for businesses but for people in general.

“All the population trends show this community continuing to grow,” he said. “Certainly geographically, we’re in a great position right on I-75. We’ve got a lot of state roads ... [We are] halfway between Atlanta and Chattanooga. And, again, we’ve got a quality of life here that a lot of people are starting to take notice of and they want to become a part of it.”

To view the full list of NerdWallet’s Best Places to Start a Business in Georgia, visit www.nerdwallet.com/blog/small-business/best-places-start-business-georgia.

Article written by Brandon Davis of The Daily Tribune News.