Most economic development organizations, whether public or private, aim to attract and retain businesses to a particular area to help foster economic growth. These organizations across the Midwest seem to be doing a good job of doing just that, with plenty of companies entering the area. The main draw that these cities offer is their central location between other Midwestern cities. However, each area has its own special draws, and its own special take on economic development.

Indianapolis

Downtown Indianapolis provides a vibrant setting for businesses looking locate or expand in the area.

The Indy Partnership, a not-for-profit, regional economic development organization in Indianapolis, represents nine counties in Indiana: Boone, Hamilton, Hancock, Hendricks, Johnson, Madison, Marion, Morgan and Shelby. The nine-county area corresponds to the metropolitan statistical area, and it has a population of about 1.6 million in more than 50 municipalities. The city of Indianapolis itself has a population of about 792,000.

“Each of our counties has a local economic development official there, and they are partners of ours,” says Suzanne Vertesch, executive vice president and CEO of The Indy Partnership. “They contribute to our budget and they sit on our advisory council.”

The Indy Partnership focuses its efforts on outreach to site selection consultants. Its goal is to develop relationships and make sure that prospective companies know the advantages of the Indianapolis market. “If they have confidence in our ability to support them, then we are going to make it easier for them to come to Indianapolis,” Vertesch explains.

To help reach this goal, The Indy Partnership plans to visit at least 10 cities this year. “In addition to this face-to-face effort, we have a goal to contact them in some way — whether it is by mail, e-mail or phone — at least once a month,” Vertesch notes.

The types of companies that The Indy Partnership has set its sights on include life sciences, advanced manufacturing, transportation logistics and information technology that relates to those businesses. “The life sciences initiative is supported by Purdue University, Indiana University, Eli Lilly, Roche Diagnostics and Dial Agrisciences,” Vertesch says. “We act as the marketing arm for that initiative. It is our goal to work directly with the companies and do the recruiting.”

The Emerging Technology Center, located on the canal in downtown Indianapolis, is an incubator for emerging life sciences companies.

Indiana has a long history in the manufacturing arena and, as a result, The Indy Partnership focuses on supporting and retaining manufacturing companies. It also targets transportation logistics because of Indianapolis’ central location. Indianapolis is within a day’s drive of about two-thirds of the U.S. population, according to Vertesch, and four interstates — 65, 70, 74 and 69 — all intersect in Indianapolis. “This is a great place for distribution centers,” Vertesch says. “We have lots of speculative development with a lot of people investing money in that sector. We target it pretty heavily.”

Some examples of companies that have recently located in the Indianapolis area include Norwood Promotional Products, which just announced that it is moving its headquarters from Austin, Texas, to Indianapolis. It is relocating people from all over the country, and it will have about 80 employees in downtown Indianapolis, Vertesch notes. “Headquarters are always important because of the level of commitment they bring to the community,” she says.

Roche Diagnostics Corp. also announced that, through its expansion of business, it will invest more than $135 million and create approximately 600 new jobs at its Indianapolis campus during the next 10 years. In addition, Case New Holland, a manufacturer of agricultural tractors and combines, recently announced that it will invest $28.7 million to build a new warehouse and distribution campus in Duke Realty’s Lebanon Business Park in Boone County. The company expects to create approximately 700 jobs by the end of 2005.

These recent successes are a tribute to the attractiveness of the nine-county area. “Everyone can talk about their tax structures and their costs to do business, and we compete well in those areas, but I think that the main thing that Indianapolis has going for it is the cooperative can-do attitude of people in the region,” Vertesch says.

Most of the development in Indianapolis is segregated by type. The majority of office development is taking place in either downtown Indianapolis, or in the northern part of the city, according to Vertesch. Distribution centers and industrial developments are most prominent in the outer counties, while housing growth has been popular on the northeast, south and west sides of town. “It is pretty steady all around the city,” Vertesch says.

Eau Claire, Wisconsin

The city of Eau Claire’s economic development division oversees downtown development, and business retention and recruitment. As part of these efforts, the city council recently approved the North Barstow Redevelopment Area project, which aims to revitalize the downtown area.

The North Barstow district encompasses the area where the Eau Claire and Chippewa rivers meet. According to Mike Schatz, economic development administrator for the city, the North Barstow area is an older, blighted part of the city. “The area is in the floodplain and is a brownfield remediation site,” he says.

The redevelopment project is in response to a study conducted by HyettPalma (a downtown consultant for the National League of Cities), which found that Eau Claire residents wanted a downtown that was oriented more toward the rivers. According to the study, residents also wanted to reserve public green space for bike and pedestrian use, clean up deterioration in the area, add new restaurants and cafés facing the river, and create more opportunities for housing downtown.

As a result, the plan for the North Barstow Redevelopment Area project calls for building sites that will provide views of the rivers, as well as a new 9-acre park that will be built at the confluence of the two rivers. The project also includes more than $25 million in private and public improvements and focuses on mixed-use development.

To help fund the project, the city council recently approved a $13.8 million tax increment financing district to pay for land acquisition costs, park enhancement expenses, and utility and street improvements. Since 1995, the Eau Claire Redevelopment Authority has been acquiring properties in the North Barstow area that were deemed blighted to provide sites for new buildings that would have substantially higher tax values, Schatz says.

The city council also created a new lead agency for the downtown area called Downtown Eau Claire Incorporated (DECI) in January 2002. The agency now serves as a one-stop shop within the city’s economic development division for all economic and downtown functions. So far, DECI — in conjunction with 10 local financial institutions, and with assistance from the Eau Claire Area Chamber of Commerce — has created a $5 million loan pool to help fund downtown projects.

For the downtown area, the city is focusing on attracting small specialty retailers, entertainment options, and office and housing prospects. The city is also converting vacant, existing second floor space into loft apartments.

In addition to attracting small specialty retailers, the city has also recruited Royal Credit Union (RCU) to locate its corporate offices in the downtown area. “After reviewing 15 sites throughout the community and the region, RCU selected a site near the two rivers in the North Barstow Redevelopment district,” Schatz says. “After a lengthy negotiation and considerable community involvement, [RCU decided to build] a new 100,000-square-foot headquarters valued at more than $10 million. The project will create 50 new jobs for the community and bring another 170 jobs to downtown.”

RCU’s headquarters will also provide the city with about $300,000 in tax revenue each year. Better still, RCU will be able to expand and construct an additional 100,000-square-foot building later on, Schatz says. The RCU administrative building and the park improvements are scheduled for completion in fall 2004.

Eau Claire, a city of about 63,000 residents, is an attractive place for businesses to locate for several reasons, Schatz says. “The area is quite beautiful physically, and the community is located on Interstate 94, which makes transportation to Minneapolis and Chicago very convenient.”

Historically, most of Eau Claire’s development has taken place on the city’s south side and near the Oakwood Mall, Schatz says. “Recent transportation changes, such as the building of the North Crossing (Highway 124), have created more balanced growth,” he says. “There has been substantial expansion on Eau Claire’s west side as we grow toward the Twin Cities.”

Additionally, many new tenants — such as Hutchinson Technology, 3-M, Silver Spring Gardens, Intek Plastics, EBY Brown, Lorman Education Services and Rockwell International — have entered Gateway West Industrial Park, which is located on Eau Claire’s northwest side. Infill in downtown with the re-use of a former tire plant, now called Banbury Place, has also attracted more than 100 tenants to its 1.9 million-square-foot building.

Lake County, Illinois

Lake County Partners, in Lake County, Illinois, is a private, not-for-profit economic development organization that was formed in 1998. The organization, which is under contract with the county, works with the 52 municipalities that it serves, as well as with other counties, chambers, school districts, universities, businesses and not-for-profits.

During the past year, Lake County Partners has refocused its initiatives. “When we were initially created, we had probably less than 3 percent unemployment,” says Dave Young, president of the organization. “We really focused on working with our existing business to help them grow, and we tried to do some things in the area of workforce development that would help companies retain and recruit employees.”

Now that the economy has taken a turn for the worse, Lake County Partners has had to redefine its goals. “We actually have a higher unemployment rate than the national rate,” Young explains. “It is about 6.9 percent and, over the last year, we have spent a lot of time putting together a proactive economic development initiative that not only would retain and expand existing business, but also would attract business from outside of the area.”

Furthermore, the county has about 70,000 residents — out of its total population of about 655,000 — that have a bachelor’s degree or higher and are commuting to places outside of Lake County. “This is because we do not offer opportunities that require their skills in this county,” Young says.

To combat the high unemployment rate and to provide more employment options for its residents, Lake County Partners hired Deloitte & Touche to help it develop a 5-year economic development marketing plan for the county. “We involved between 100 and 150 private and public community leaders to help develop the plan, and we are now in the process of implementing it,” Young says.

As part of the plan, Lake County Partners identified industry clusters that it thought would be a good fit for the area. Additionally, it decided that it would target regional headquarters, as well as professional/back office operations. It identified medical devices, and related plastics and electronics industries, as well as pharmaceuticals and biotechnology industries.

Deloitte & Touche handed in its final report in January, and Lake County Partners is now building a team of consultants to help market the county to these types of companies. One of its main goals is to streamline the permitting and approval process to make it easier for companies to locate in the area. The organization is also building a comprehensive database that will track sites and buildings that are available in the area.

“We are also working with communities to bring these sites up to what we call ‘shovel-ready’ condition,” Young says. “Our goal is to get the ones that are the most immediate opportunities ready and positioned for the market. Then, we will focus on the sites that will take longer to get ready — given all of the permitting and infrastructure issues related to making them shovel ready.”

Lake County Partners plans to use a third-party provider, such as a college or university, to measure the performance of the plan based on its effectiveness and efficiency. “We will monitor the performance of our local economy, and we will probably use a couple of benchmark cities that we consider to be our competition, to evaluate how our economy is doing in comparison,” Young says.

Des Moines, Iowa

The Greater Des Moines Partnership is a consolidation of three groups: the Des Moines Development Corporation, the Greater Des Moines Chamber of Commerce and Choose Des Moines Communities — the latter of which is the group’s regional economic development arm. Choose Des Moines Communities represents the Des Moines metropolitan statistical area (with a population of about 500,000), which includes Polk, Warren and Dallas counties, as well as 13 municipalities within these counties.

In 2000, Choose Des Moines Communities developed a set of 5-year goals, and it is now in its fourth year of working toward these goals. “Our goal is to work with 225 businesses over the 5-year time period, and we are targeting 150 expansions [of existing companies] and 75 new companies locating in the area,” says Mike Swesey, senior project manager with Choose Des Moines Communities. “Of those 225 projects, our goal is to have at least $1 billion worth of new, private sector investment.”

So far, Choose Des Moines Communities has had 29 new companies enter the market and 68 expansions — all with an approximate capital investment of $670 million. “We have about a year and a half to go, and we are pretty confident that we will reach those goals,” Swesey notes.

To help it do so, Choose Des Moines Communities started a marketing campaign in 2000 called “Change Your View.” The campaign’s main focus is to create a positive perception of the Des Moines area. “We want people to change their views and not just think of Iowa and Des Moines as an agricultural center, but also as a business center,” Swesey says.

As part of the campaign, Choose Des Moines Communities uses its Web site (www.desmoinesmetro.com) as its foundation. “We have an amazing research center on our Web site that is specifically there for site selectors and for people in corporations that are making those expansion or relocation decisions,” says Susan Ramsey, spokesperson for Choose Des Moines Communities. “The research center has almost every data analysis about the region that you could possibly ask for.” The group also makes marketing trips once a month to major markets across the country to meet with companies that are interested in a Midwest location.

Choose Des Moines Communities has targeted three types of industries: advanced manufacturing companies and distribution companies; life sciences and biotechnology companies; and insurance and financial services companies. “Those are three broad categories that we target; however, we are looking for quality employers that create quality jobs,” Swesey notes.

Within the past year, several companies have expanded or relocated to the Des Moines area. For example, San Antonio, Texas-based Clarke-American recently constructed a $12.5 million, 50,000-square-foot check manufacturing facility. Manley Toy Company recently doubled the size of its 130,000-square-foot facility. Additionally, Firestone Agricultural Tire Company recently broke ground on a new 850,000-square-foot global distribution center. “They will distribute tires throughout the world from their Des Moines distribution center,” Swesey says. “That is one of the biggest projects that we have had to date. It will be an approximately $50 million project when all is said and done.”

Allied Insurance Company, a division of Nationwide, just built a new $137 million, 500,000-square-foot corporate headquarters in downtown Des Moines. Wells Fargo Financial Services also recently built a new 300,000-square-foot office building downtown totaling about $90 million.

According to Swesey, the area is attractive to companies due to the quality and availability of its workforce. “We also have what is called a Single Factor Corporate Income Tax, and it is based only on your sales in Iowa,” Swesey says. “So, it is advantageous for companies to move here and then export their products to other states.” That is not hard to do either, considering Des Moines’ central location between Minneapolis, Chicago, Kansas City and Omaha. “We also have aggressive economic development incentive programs, and they include grants and low-interest loans,” Swesey says.

Despite all of these successes across the Midwest, economic development does have its challenges. According to Swesey, the biggest challenge is changing people’s view of the Midwest. “We want people to think of the Midwest as a place not only to do business, but also as a nice place to live.”

©2003 France Publications, Inc. Duplication or reproduction of this article not permitted without authorization from France Publications, Inc. For information on reprints of this article contact Barbara Sherer at (630) 554-6054.