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Economic Development

MAPC

Promoting Smart Growth & Regional Collaboration

Looking for COVID-19 Recovery Resources?

We've compiled a list of COVID recovery resources, focused on small business support, economic development, climate and clean energy, education, food access, internet accessibility, planning, recreation, and transportation.

Questions?

Angela Brown
Chief of Economic Development
abrown@mapc.org.

Leverage Technical Assistance Funding to Advance Local Economic Development Aims! 

The next MAPC Technical Assistance Program (TAP) call for project concepts will be announced soon! The program provides funding for technical assistance and can serve as a vehicle to identify projects that resonate with community needs. 

At MAPC, the Economic Development Team recognizes that each community is unique and strives to create solutions tailored to municipalities’ distinct economic development goals. A sampling of the team’s collaborations with municipal partners includes:  

1. Crafting Economic Development Plans: MAPC helps the municipality prepare an economic development vision or plan, incorporating stakeholder engagement, asset identification, and growth strategy formulation. While tailored to local needs, these engagements can include:

  • Engaging diverse stakeholders to ensure all voices are heard and considered 
  • Leveraging the community’s economic strengths to drive sustainable growth 
  • Promoting innovation, entrepreneurship, and workforce development 

2. Empowering Entrepreneurs to Grow their Businesses: MAPC helps the municipality create a business guide rendering the process for establishing or expanding a business smoother and more transparent. This type of resource can: 

  • Clearly describe important occupancy and start-up approvals and zoning and permitting procedures to save time for busy business owners and identify streamlining opportunities 
  • Highlight the municipality’s assets and offerings, heightening its potential to attract new businesses and retain expanding businesses 

3. Advancing Downtown Revitalization: The heart of many communities is their downtown or town center. Recognizing this, MAPC partners with various entities to offer: 

  • Tailored plans and support mechanisms to rejuvenate these crucial zones 
  • Focused support for BIPOC and immigrant-owned businesses, underscoring the commitment to inclusivity and the recognition of the rich tapestry of diversity these businesses bring to the table

4. Leveraging Data Insights to Track Progress: MAPC supports municipal data-driven decision-making. Related services can include: 

  • Assistance in gathering and analyzing relevant economic performance data 
  • Facilitation of year-to-year comparisons to gauge progress and areas of improvement 
  • Development of effective communication strategies to share this data with the public and specific stakeholders, fostering trust and transparency 

Municipalities interested in engaging these or related services should contact Angela Brown (Abrown@MAPC.org) to arrange a discussion of potential TAP projects.  

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Advancing industrial growth and preservation

Industrial districts and business parks housing industrial firms create and preserve jobs and job access, and, in many instances, provide opportunities for job seekers who for a variety of reasons do not have a college degree. We engage municipalities to proactively preserve industrial land by creating land use plans that can balance the need to attract and retain industrial employers’ activities with needs for other uses, such as mixed-use or even housing. We are leaning into the question; How can MAPC best support municipalities to intentionally plan to activate their industrial spaces or business parks with manufacturing, repair, and distribution businesses and see them grow in scale? MAPC partners with entities to create tailored plans and support mechanism to preserve and enhance these local assets.

Align Land Use Regulations

The MAPC Economic Development Team is a vital resource for municipalities in the region looking to align their land use regulations with an economic development plan. Through our expertise in zoning updates, capital investment strategies, and support for brownfield redevelopment, we help communities unlock their growth potential. By fostering collaboration as well as business and community engagement, the team ensures that these changes reflect the values and aspirations of the people they serve. In doing so, we hope to contribute to the creation of vibrant, sustainable, and economically prosperous communities across the region..

COVID-19 Response and Recovery

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically, and possibly permanently, altered traditional economic systems as we know them - in the MAPC region and across the globe. MAPC's economic development team has helped our cities and towns respond in real time to the changes and challenges brought on by COVID-19, developing small business, unemployment, and digital access response plans; working on public health workforce development; and helping cities and towns repurpose street space to accommodate increased walking, biking, dining, and retail.

Community, municipal, and regional economic planning initiatives and downtown revitalization plans will be essential to recovery and resilience in our communities, and our team is ready to help our region respond.

Economic Development Planning

Our team digs into your community’s demographic and economic trends, current business landscape, and current practices to create goals and implementation steps to improve economic development in your community. Given the connection between economic development, housing and transportation, we develop strategies that prioritize and support community development, including community investment in housing, small and large businesses, workforce development and transit access. 

Small Business Support Plans

Our team can help you understand the needs of small businesses in your community through a deep dive into existing conditions and interviewing/surveying small business owners. We’ll then create a plan for how you can support small businesses in your community through policy changes, financial assistance, and other programs.  

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we worked on COVID-specific support plans. Read more here.

Closing the Digital Divide

MAPC believes that municipalities have a key role to play in ensuring universal digital access via computing devices, digital literacy trainings, and reliable, and fast internet infrastructure. We’re working with cities and towns and municipal stakeholders on assessing what’s needed to close the digital divide and how to make that happen.  

Read More Here

Unemployment Reponse Plans

Where can municipalities get unemployment data? What systems should cities and towns have in place to assist their residents? How can municipalities work with career centers? If an official is contacted by an employer who's hiring, what should they do? Many municipalities aren’t connected with the local career centers and other resources to help unemployed residents. MAPC can help evaluate the needs and resources in your city or town and develop an action framework for economic security.  

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we worked on COVID-specific unemployment plans. Read more here.

Workforce Development Strategies

Our team can help your municipality create a comprehensive strategy to develop a local workforce to support growing industries.  

Zoning to Encourage Economic Development

Looking to create a bustling business district in an old industrial area? Attract office parks? Introduce new types of businesses to your community? Our team can help you rewrite zoning—for a parcel, neighborhood, or business district—that encourages economic growth. Given that zoning changes are done to achieve broader goals and given the importance of housing and transportation for economic development, our team will work with you to determine the appropriate zoning to meet those goals.  

MAPC serves as the region’s Economic Development District (EDD), designated by the federal Economic Development Administration (EDA). As part of our work as an EDD, we assist municipalities in their efforts to secure funding from the EDA for a wide range of projects.  To discuss funding opportunities, please contact Raul Gonzalez at rgonzalez@mapc.org.

As part of our work as an EDD, MAPC creates a regional economic development strategy every five years. This serves as a guide for the economic development activities of MAPC.The strategy design process offers a unique chance to evaluate current conditions that affect the economy and create strategies that capitalize on the region’s strengths and opportunities, address internal weaknesses, and minimize external threats to equitable economic development.

For the 2020-2025 CEDS, the compound national crises of COVID-19 and environmental disasters, and the continuing crisis of racial injustice, spurred the creation of a regional strategy with resilience and racial equity at its core.

2021 CEDS Performance Review

Annual CEDS Performance Review submitted to the U.S. Economic Development Administration

Recovery Resources

Please visit EDI’s Federal Assistance for Economic Development page on EDA’s website at  www.eda.gov  to view a table of previously highlighted funding opportunities that are still open.  This table represents a selection of opportunities available on Grants.gov that may be of particular interest to local and regional economic development stakeholders. 

General COVID Recovery

Small Business Support, Job Creation, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development

Climate and Clean Energy

Education

Food Access

Internet

Planning and Technical Assistance

Recreation

Transportation