最新杏吧原创 is seeking outside consultants to help craft a new economic development strategy, a project that city leaders have talked about for over a year.
The 最新杏吧原创 Development Corp., the city鈥檚 economic development arm, voted Thursday to issue a request for proposals from firms to craft the document.
鈥淭he purpose of the Economic Development Strategy is to position the city on the path toward a resilient economy by casting the vision that SLDC, the city and its public, private and institutional partners can coalesce around and act upon to drive investment and growth in the city,鈥 Otis Williams, SLDC executive director, said in an email.
Williams said he hoped to narrow the responses down to three to five firms by August and select a final proposal by September. The planning process, including public meetings and outreach, could take up to a year and cost as much as $500,000.
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A 2016 report on the city鈥檚 incentive use called for the creation of a comprehensive strategy.
鈥淚n particular, surrounding communities have largely focused their development efforts around a citywide plan that does not appear to be the controlling factor in 最新杏吧原创,鈥 the report found.
Yet the city has struggled to find the money to develop the strategy. This year, Williams said, he鈥檚 confident there will be money in the budget to pay for it.
SLDC initially indicated funding could come from the sales tax voters passed in April 2017, much of which was for MetroLink expansion but which also can pay for economic development. But the final SLDC resolution passed Thursday removed that language, and Williams said funding would come from a variety of sources.
One of the goals is to identify nodes of concentrated strength or future opportunity that the city can build off of.
鈥淗ow can we leverage the successes that we have had to ensure we have success throughout the city?鈥 Williams asked.
The request for proposals calls for identifying areas of north 最新杏吧原创 where SLDC and private or institutional partners 鈥渃an establish solid footholds upon which to build and invest to initiate the economic turnaround of this long underserved area.鈥
A redevelopment fund is under discussion at SLDC that could inject public capital into areas where the market is especially weak, such as north 最新杏吧原创 and parts of southeast 最新杏吧原创.
鈥淭he idea behind it is to invest in those nodes,鈥 said Jonathan Ferry, an SLDC analyst.
The plan would also identify industries to focus on, state and local policy suggestions and how the city鈥檚 economy interacts with the larger metro area. The strategy should also include metrics to gauge whether the city is successfully implementing the strategy.
Alderman Joe Roddy, who as head of the Housing Urban Development and Zoning committee has called for a citywide plan for several years, said it was 鈥渓ong overdue.鈥 He said a bill passed by alderman earlier this year calling for the creation of an economic development strategy, which would be updated annually, put some additional pressure on SLDC to move ahead with the strategy.
鈥淚鈥檓 fairly happy and proud of the progress that鈥檚 been made over the past couple of years, though I know it鈥檚 not as fast as some people would like,鈥 Roddy said. 鈥淏ut I think this is a big step in the right direction.鈥
Not emphasized in the request for proposals, though, is how and where the city should use development incentives. The 2016 incentives report that tallied the $700 million not collected from 2000 to 2014 from tax abatement and tax increment financing called for a 鈥渮one approach鈥 to guide where the city uses incentives and how much it offers.
Williams said that SLDC did not want to replicate previous studies and that staff had already put a lot of work into developing criteria for how much to offer developers in certain areas. He said a map guiding those decisions was a separate project and should be ready soon.
鈥淲e will continue to make modifications as we learn more and as the market changes in the city itself,鈥 he said.
