YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — Youngstown can now begin the process of developing an economic development plan, something the city has never had, after city council Wednesday evening approved spending $50,000 to hire a company for a blueprint of how to proceed.
Nikki Posterli, director of community planning and economic development, explained the proposal for an economic development plan to city council.
“From my knowledge, the city has not had not had a strategic plan in economic development,” Posterli said.
What council approved was spending $50,000 to hire the Montrose Group of Columbus to develop an economic development action plan. The Montrose Group has been around 65 years and has developed 50 such plans throughout the Midwest.
“This is going to help us chart our path going forward. We don’t know what we’re missing, so they’re going to help us kind of fill in those gaps,” Posterli said.
The full proposal from the Montrose Group can be found here:
The final report from Montrose will include baseline data, demographic information, a business retention and attraction analysis, a workforce assessment, a downtown strategy and an inventory of sites and buildings.
“What should we be looking at when we’re trying to assemble property and land for economic development — they’ll help us with that,” Posterli said.
The Montrose Group’s timeline is aggressive. They hope to start on the plan this month, have a first draft by July and a presentation to the public in August.
“We always talk about being competitive. I think we’re a little beyond being competitive. We want to be the best. We want to be the city that other cities to look to follow, to say, ‘Hey, that’s a great idea of what’s going into Youngstown,’” Posterli said. “We want to be able to be able to mirror that, too.”
City council also approved creating a small business boost program, where a $200,000 pool of money will be awarded in $10,000 increments to small, locally owned businesses. More information can be found in the document below:
Also approved: $44,500 will go toward a study to decide if it’s cost effective to start an ambulance service in the fire department.