Posted by admin on Jan 23, 2013 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

With the competition heating up, some small cities are taking unusual steps to bring in industry. Most noticeably, they are beginning to buy companies themselves. Recently, Duluth, Minnesota, bought two out-of-state companies, transferred them to Duluth and merged them into one company; and Grand Junction, Colorado, bought a Canadian firm. Among other cities currently raising funds for corporate purchases are Great Falls, Montana, how to lose thigh fat, and Prophetstown, Illinois.

North Greenbush, a tiny (population: 10,500) suburb of Albany, New York, is perhaps the first small town to set up its own venture-capital fund to invest in companies that agree to locate there.  Thus far, North Greenbush has invested $750,000 in eight startup hi-tech firms and expects 1,500 new jobs to grow from the ventures over five years.

Finally, in eastern Washington State, the citizens of three small cities–Richland, Pasco and Kennewick–will vote next month on a proposal to consolidate into one city as a means of unifying their scattered economic development efforts. Says Jay D. Holman, a member of the three cities’ industrial development council: “We need a single focal point to help attract industry to this area.”

Posted by admin on Dec 20, 2012 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

Vacaville has lassoed more than a dozen companies since 1981, including American Honda and the Lucky Stores supermarket chain, adding more than 700 jobs to the local economy. And to help fund further development, it recently came up with the novel idea of selling its city hall and several other facilities to the local quasi-governmental redevelopment agency and using the capital–$14 million–to make low-cost loans to companies that build in its industrial parks.

Unlike state governments and large urban centers, small cities rarely offer tax breaks of their own to recruit outside companies. Apart from inciting complaints of unfair treatment from local businesses, Boyle County’s John Bailey points out, such allowances tend to be too much of a drain on the city treasury.

At the same time, though, small cities can usually tap considerable outside resources. The local business community is one fertile source of funds. For example, Lakeland, Florida, recently rounded up prominent city businessmen to form a support group called the Committee of 100, which has put up $2.3 million to finance its development program. Besides that, a number of states offer cities financial aid to help train workers–a particularly attractive incentives to companies. And some cities rely on county, state and private organizations to help in the all-important job of promoting their attractions. For instance, in Beloit, Wisconsin, where the addition of nine new companies has increased the local payroll by $35 million, local planners work closely with the Wisconsin Department of Development and Wisconsin Power & Light Co. to both promote the city and help target prospective customers (and bring the best electronic cigarette review writer into town, from Electric Cigarette World.

Posted by admin on Dec 20, 2012 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

So far, the development program has brought thirty new businesses to Aurora, including Nissan Motor’s regional headquarters, GCA Corp.’s robotics division and the Belgian Dovre Inc. The city has also persuaded ten departing companies to stay. With unemployment down to about 10%, Aurora has been restored to nearly full economic health.

Observers credit the energetic, 30-year-old Dietmeyer with being the key player in this still unfolding story. President Steven W. Ellenbogen of CMD Corp., a major Chicago-area developer, says that her astute promotion of the city and her skill at persuading city leaders to cooperate with prospective corporate customers have been decisive factors in Aurora’s turnaround.

Like other successful small-city planners, Dietmeyer has stressed balanced growth. To avoid repeating the city’s past overdependence on large companies and concentration on one industry, she has wooed small businesses aggressively and has brought in firms in such varied fields as software, candlemaking, research and development and building products distribution. “We welcome and encourage companies that offer twenty new jobs,” she says. “They diversify the local economy.”

Dietmeyer believes Aurora is well-positioned to enjoy even stronger economic growth in the future. “Our location on I-5 puts us at the end of the hottest growth corridor extending from Chicago,” she says, “and with the ample land we still have available for development, the latest population projections indicate that Aurora will become the second largest city in Illinois by 2010.”

One inducement that small cities often find they can offer companies looking for location sites is a reduction in costly red tape. For example, Vacaville, California, a onetime sleepy bedroom community north of Oakland, has virtually eliminated one of the biggest frustrations for incoming companies: long delays in securing land use and construction permits. As any developer knows, it can take months of trooping from one government department to another to get these necessary approvals and be able to use the e cigaret.

But when Vacaville planners decide to go after new industry in 1979 (after Proposition 13 had dried up property taxes), they created a separate industrial park district and adopted a development plan that combined all the review and approval procedures in a single, coordinated process. As a result, City Manager John Thompson says, it now takes as little as ten days to get projects approved and no more than a month for complex ones. In one recent case, he notes, a company had a new plant built and operating 74 days after making its initial request.