With all of this office space sitting vacant in downtown Des Moines and plenty of land to be developed along our major highways, sometimes we feel envious when we see smaller Iowa cities and towns landing big companies and foreign investors.

Sure, we want good things to happen for the whole state, but still – a lot of space here. So we wondered how Dubuque got IBM Corp. to move into an old department store last year. Dubuque leaders talked about a plentiful supply of well-educated young workers. OK, but we could say to any future business shoppers: Drake University, Grand View University, AIB College of Business, Des Moines Area Community College and, just a half-hour drive away, Iowa State University.

Then, just the other day, a Saudi Arabian company chose Cedar Rapids as the site of a distribution operation for its plastic parts. To which we might say: Des Moines International Airport, railroad connections, Interstate 80 and Interstate 35.

It’s the possibility that foreign companies might be getting more interested in the Midwest that really has us thinking. National real estate investors found their way to Central Iowa when the traditional big-city approach lost steam. It’s a bigger leap for CEOs from other continents to land here; now might be the right time to redouble our efforts to attract them.

Whoever succeeds Martha Willits as president of the Greater Des Moines Partnership would do well to stretch our horizons as far as possible. Willits presided over a remarkable era here – one that led to NPR political commentators referring to Des Moines as “lovely” during morning drive time recently, and meaning it.

However, they knew what the place is like only because of our role in the presidential campaigns every four years. People still need to be pulled here.

Gov. Terry Branstad’s recent trip to China was the kind of effort Iowa needs, but Greater Des Moines has to seize every chance to sell itself as the prime location in the state.