[ad_1]
CEDAR RAPIDS — As the city of Cedar Rapids leans into a larger role in attracting new businesses, Mayor Tiffany O’Donnell said it’s key for the city to work in tandem with private partners to continue to spur growth while also leading as the economic powerhouse of the region.
In O’Donnell’s second State of the City address since taking office last January, delivered Tuesday at the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel, she said it’s necessary for Iowa’s second-largest city to retain existing businesses and workers while enhancing efforts to recruit new ones.
But the move has raised some questions about the city’s relationship with other economic development entities performing similar functions such as the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance.
“Cedar Rapids is the driver of the metro economy,” O’Donnell said, adding that her definition of regionalism is having the best Cedar Rapids possible. “We take that very seriously and are committed to living up to the expectation by putting more talent and resources on the plate.”
She touted the city’s “growth era,” as fiscal 2022 — the budget year that ended June 30, 2022 — saw a record-breaking $773 million in valuation of building permits, fueled by commercial, industrial and single- and multifamily residential construction.
The southwest quadrant perhaps best exemplifies that growth trajectory, O’Donnell said, with a $1 billion investment by businesses over the last decade, massive new warehouses and distribution facilities leveraging the transportation network, and enhancements to The Eastern Iowa Airport.
In the city’s recently refreshed economic development strategic plan, made with the help of Austin, Texas-based Angelou Economics, the assessment identified potential for the city to carve out a larger role in business attraction efforts. Some, though, have questioned what the city’s growth in this sphere means for its collaboration with the Economic Alliance.
Soon after City Manager Jeff Pomeranz arrived in 2010, the city launched an economic development office, which over time has taken on more duties in recruiting and retaining businesses, helping businesses expand and growing the workforce. The Economic Alliance has a broader focus on the Cedar Rapids metro area, while the city’s economic development staff focus on Cedar Rapids exclusively.
Asked about her view on the continuation of a decadeslong partnership between the city and private organizations such as Priority One, which merged with other organizations in 2011 to become the Economic Alliance, O’Donnell said economic development has greatly shifted in that time.
When Priority One existed, O’Donnell said there was a need for one location for requests for proposals to attract new businesses. Now, she said brokers and landowners go directly to the city organization where the incentives are offered, so it’s critical to be in “lockstep” with partners in the private sector and the Economic Alliance.
“The relationship is very different and it requires a lot of collaboration and communication with entities with our private business partners as well as with organizations like the Economic Alliance to make sure that we’re not duplicating services because the needs are different,” O’Donnell said. “And we continue to examine ways to make that targeted and focused for Cedar Rapids.”
Economic Alliance Executive Director Doug Neumann said afterward that enhanced role is appropriate for the city to assume.
“We are important and solid partners and there is so much work to do particularly in talent attraction, but in business attraction as well,” Neumann said. “Any additional capacity that we can put toward this task is nothing but positive.”
Workforce
Growing the workforce through training and upskilling employees and recruiting new talent are key to navigating labor market constraints to help businesses grow and draw new businesses, O’Donnell said.
She announced the first-ever Mayor’s Youth Conference taking place this fall, a new one-day initiative that will provide high school students with an opportunity to connect with local mentors and learn about a variety of workforce opportunities.
The city this past year used federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to pilot scholarships where the city provides the last dollars to help students attend Kirkwood Community College for certain career and technical education programs.
Immigrant communities also should have opportunities to take part in the city’s growth, she said, and the city is supporting that with programs such as Gateways for Growth to ensure foreign-born residents have the education and connections to succeed.
Housing
More residents are struggling to find housing as the city faces demand for thousands of new units at all price points, O’Donnell said.
The influx of over $24 million in Community Development Block Grant disaster recovery funding will fuel new and infill housing development. Meanwhile, the city is pursuing other efforts to add new housing such as the restoration of the former Colonial Center building in Wellington Heights into affordable housing.
Downtown
As the city refreshes its downtown vision plan with Denver-based consultant Progressive Urban Management Associates, O’Donnell said Cedar Rapids must adapt to the changes brought on by COVID-19, which has left the urban core more empty of the workers that once kept the space active.
So far, there’s an opportunity to increase housing downtown, lean into green space and public art and amenities such as dog parks and other gathering spaces.
“Our challenge today is to determine what endures and what moves us forward,” O’Donnell said.
Disaster recovery
Work on the city’s permanent flood control system continues and the city has now completed nearly two miles of flood protection on both sides of the Cedar River — about 25 percent of the flood walls, levees and underground infrastructure needed to fortify the city against rising waters.
To recover from the 2020 derecho, O’Donnell said crews have removed more than 9,200 stumps left behind by trees downed in the storm’s hurricane-force winds.
Comments: (319) 398-8494; marissa.payne@thegazette.com
[ad_2]
Source link