Still the nation’s richest, smartest

But report points to slower job growth in the region last year

The region added about 59,000 jobs last year, 17 percent fewer than in 2005. The area ranked fifth highest, sliding from second the previous year.

Los Angeles topped the job creation category, almost doubling its number from 2005. Miami, the leader last year, slid more than the Washington region, hitting only about 50 percent last year of its previous year’s growth.

Another recent report by the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., showed the D.C. area’s job growth slowing in 2006 as well. Other regions besides Los Angeles that posted higher job creation figures than Greater Washington last year included New York, Dallas, Phoenix and Houston.

The local region led the nation in job creation over a five-year period ending in 2005, according to the reports.

The lower job numbers in 2006 in the Washington region are not a source of concern, officials said Wednesday at a luncheon attended by some 350 business and government officials at the $2 billion National Harbor’s offices in Oxon Hill. Other metro areas are catching up after the Washington region enjoyed abnormally high job-creation years due to an infusion of federal spending, they said.

Federal spending in Greater Washington reached $116.5 billion last year, about 50 percent more than in 2001.

‘‘Adding more than 50,000 jobs in a year is still a pretty strong economy,” said Knight Kiplinger, editor in chief at Kiplinger’s Personal Finance and the keynote speaker at the luncheon. ‘‘The D.C. region will keep growing because complex international challenges always lead to the expansion of federal procurement.”

The next big trend fueling an influx of federal dollars into local companies will be environmental and energy regulation ‘‘as global warming becomes more of a crisis,” Kiplinger said.

The Greater Washington Initiative plans to review the area’s environmental resources and look at ways to become a more sustainable economy, said Timothy Priest, executive director of the organization, which is the economic development arm of the Greater Washington Board of Trade.

The local area led the other nine largest metro regions in the nation in median income with $74,600, percentage of adults with at least a bachelor’s degree at 45.9 percent and gross regional product per capita at $59,000. The District area’s gross regional product of $359.3 billion last year was about 5 percent more than in 2005.

The Maryland counties in the Washington metro region are Montgomery, Prince George’s, Frederick, Howard, Anne Arundel, Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s counties.

This year’s report included projections aided by Waltham, Mass., forecasting company Global Insight. The area’s gross regional product is expected to reach $495 billion by 2012, and job growth will average more than 50,000 annually through then, the report says.

Three Maryland projects among region’s major ones

The report identified seven major projects that will ‘‘transform” Greater Washington, and three are in Maryland.

‘‘These are projects that will transform the way we live, work and play,” said Samuel A Schreiber, chairman of the Greater Washington Initiative and regional president for Wachovia Bank, one of the largest banks in Maryland. ‘‘We foresee a vibrant future.”

Besides the 350-acre National Harbor, the $352 million downtown Rockville project and $2.4 billion Intercounty Connector highway were listed. Others are a $4 billion expansion of Washington Dulles International Airport, the planned extension of the Metro rail line from Falls Church, Va., to Dulles, a $3 billion investment in hotels and residential units near Massachusetts Avenue and the new Washington Nationals ballpark.

The Rockville development is expected to add about 2,500 residential units, 550 hotel rooms, 13 office buildings and 775,000 square feet of retail by 2012. The business incubator is filling up nicely with nine companies now signed, said Sally Sternbach, executive director of Rockville Economic Development Inc. who attended Wednesday’s luncheon.

National Harbor plans to have 1 million square feet of retail, entertainment and dining space, 500,000 square feet of Class A office space, 2,500 residential units and 4,000 hotel rooms — about half of those in a Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center hotel.

The first phase is expected to be completed by next April, said Milton V. Peterson, CEO of The Peterson Cos., the Fairfax, Va., developer of the waterfront project. Employees showed off models of one- and two-bedroom units on Wednesday.

‘‘About 500 condominiums will go up for sale soon,” said Peterson, who said he has worked on the project for the last 13 years.

More than $12 million worth of public art will be erected or moved to the complex, including ‘‘The Awakening,” a giant sculpture by J. Seward Johnson that has been in the District’s East Potomac for almost three decades. ‘‘‘The Awakening’ could have gone to Japan,” Peterson said. ‘‘I’m proud to bring it here.”

Peterson said National Harbor will be ‘‘a fun place” and ‘‘cosmopolitan” with eventually as much as 2 million square feet of office space. He envisioned a Metro station eventually reaching National Harbor, as well as water taxi service via the river to Alexandria, Va., Georgetown and Mount Vernon.

‘‘Anything goes as long as it’s good,” Peterson said.

Region’s Economy at a Glance:

By 2012, at least 50 percent of Greater Washington’s population is expected to be minority, with Hispanics accounting for 37 percent of the population growth.

Last year, the median price for a new home in the region was $439,050. That is expected to drop to $400,800 by 2009 before rising back to $439,180 by 2012. The median housing price last year was more than twice that of Atlanta, but significantly below New York and California.

Bethesda defense and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin Corp. took over the top place as the largest employer in Greater Washington with 22,600 employees, rising from fourth place last year. Northrop Grumman, Science Applications International Corp. and Inova Health System followed. Bethesda hotelier Marriott International jumped from sixth to fifth place with 14,560 employees.

The region’s biotechnology industry had the second most employees per capita among the 10 largest metro areas, with 410 per 100,000 residents. Boston was first. Gaithersburg biotech MedImmune was the top industry employer in the region with 1,000 employees.