ED-Central


In This Issue


- Take a Windshield Tour and Capture a Fresh Perspective
- Tell Your Story and Share Successes with A Little Help from Technology




Every community has properties and facilities that are underutilized or, worse yet, ignored until they reach a near blighted state. Maybe it’s a park that’s been poorly maintained, an old movie theater, manufacturing plant or your municipal airport. Whatever it is, there is merit in taking the time to understand the latent value of the property and identify the keys to unlocking its full potential.

Take a Windshield Tour and Capture a Fresh Perspective

To identify new ideas for development and unearth forgotten assets, invite leaders from surrounding communities to come together for a regional windshield tour. Letting someone who is not as familiar with your community have a look around will bring fresh perspective regarding existing and potential assets and could generate ideas for redevelopment of underutilized facilities. As an added bonus, getting leaders together from adjacent communities also provides a venue for creating regional collaboration toward growth and prosperity.

Tell Your Story and Share Successes with A Little Help from Technology

Whether we’re managing grants or an economic development strategy, we are all accountable to someone. And, more often than not, when it comes time to pull together a report the information you need isn’t where you need it. The result is often last minute, late night scrambling and under reporting of program gains. Consider letting simple reporting software help you keep track of project progress as you go so when you need a report, it’s generated with a click of a button and customizable to your audience. TEEX Performance Reporting System (PRS) for Economic Development provides easy tracking and reporting of projects and success stories. To learn more about PRS, visit TEEX Knowledge Engineering Center’s web site at http://kec.tamu.edu/performance_reporting_systems.aspx.

Every community has properties and facilities that are underutilized or, worse yet, ignored until they reach a near blighted state. Maybe it’s a park that’s been poorly maintained, an old movie theater, manufacturing plant or your municipal airport. Whatever it is, there is merit in taking the time to understand the latent value of the property and identify the keys to unlocking its full potential.

By assessing the state of any given asset, benchmarking how similar resources are utilized by other communities or businesses and researching related market trends, economic development practitioners can arm themselves with the information required to garner support for local investment, financing or grant applications. At the very least, market assessments can prevent any further investment in a facility that is unlikely to generate meaningful return. Such studies and assessments are best conducted by an objective third party that has access to resources and expertise upon which to base sound judgments and that is not likely to have a stake in the study’s outcomes.

Effective assessments and market studies incorporate data from a range of resources that will vary based on the subject of the study, but the research should include:

Literature Searches: A review of recent literature related to the study topic will reveal best practices, market trends and lessons learned and provide a source for further research.

Historical Research: Understanding the history of a facility provides significant insight into both limitations and opportunities. For example, knowing that a historical property was once a fuel station would prompt further research into what environmental mitigation, if any, had been undertaken at the property.

Benchmarking: Identifying and studying the best examples of redevelopment or reuse of a particular type of asset yields creative inspiration and provides an opportunity to learn from other’s successes and failures.

Primary Research: Surveys and interviews with businesses related to a particular asset reveal potential opportunities for business expansion or for the offering of new services not previously considered.

In conducting an assessment of one rural community’s municipal airport, the Texas Engineering Extension Service was able to identify and document potential new customers for the facility. Through interviews with airport managers, industries and even pilots, TEEX learned the keys to successful municipal airport operations, identified the barriers the community would need to overcome in order to establish profitable operations and gathered insights into marketing such a facility to those most likely to make use of it.

As a state agency charged with serving and supporting the needs of Texas communities, TEEX is ideally suited to provide objective, third-party assessments of community assets and has access to the industries and professionals who are eager to share their insights and expertise. To learn more about how TEEX might assist your community with the evaluation of existing assets or research into the development of new ones, email info@ed-central.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joan Tatge manages the Economic Development Program of the Technology and Economic Development Division of the Texas Engineering Extension Service (TEEX). Joan has served communities across Texas with strategic planning, marketing strategy and implementation programs.