April 25, 2024
A new entity focused on creating and expanding projects in the state’s lake-to-river region is poised to take the four boroughs’ economic progress efforts to the next level.
“This Ohio is experiencing new expansion and is poised for even greater prosperity,” said Gov. Mike DeWine, who announced Lake to River’s economic progress Wednesday.
It is the seventh and final region in the JobsOhio network, the state’s personal economic progress corporation, and includes Trumbull, Mahoning, Ashtabula and Columbiana counties.
“I’m very positive about what this region is going to do,” DeWine told a packed space at the Eastwood Event Center in Niles. “We’ve done well in the last four or five years (and) we’re going to see more expansion in the future. “
The breakthrough is being hailed as a turning point through the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber, which will greatly collaborate with the organization while expanding and redefining its role in economic progress by allocating more resources to “strategic and transformative initiatives” to prepare the region. for “future and sustainable economic growth”, according to the Chamber.
Lake to River joins six other components of the JobsOhio network: Dayton Development Coalition, Ohio Southeast Economic Development, One Columbus, REDI Cincinnati, Regional Growth Partnership, and Team NEO, which were the local region component prior to the split.
DEVELOPMENT
Local economic progress groups, business leaders, and others approached DeWine’s office in March 2023 with this proposal because the region has felt, and still feels, the impact of Ohio’s economic expansion through a myriad of progress projects and projects.
“I’m excited about it and when the band came to see me, I said, ‘Look, this makes sense. ItArray makes sense,'” DeWine said. I think it will allow each of the four counties to work in combination, it will be more powerful than before. I believe it will allow this region to become more commercialised than ever before. And I think it will also give more confidence to those who are thinking about investing in this area.
Since 2019, the region has seen a 34% expansion in deals, a 23% expansion in new jobs, a 61% backlog in new payrolls and a 148% backlog in retained jobs, said DeWine, who also cited some of the key attributes, its geography (halfway between Cleveland and Pittsburgh and New York and Chicago), its own media market and strong economic progression partnerships.
In fact, the new region, whose mainstay is Youngstown, is Ohio’s only major metropolitan media market without its own JobsOhio region.
The progression ecosystem includes Youngstown State University, the Mahoning Valley Manufacturers Coalition and more than 20 partners who have combined to shape the Regional Workforce Coalition, according to a state news release.
In addition, there is momentum in the region, built through JobsOhio and Team NEO in partnership with the chamber projecting 124 with more than 8,000 new jobs and a new payroll of more than $364 million.
The new organization will be run through a board of trustees of nine users: two from the 4 counties and one designated user through JobsOhio. Alexa Sweeney Blackann, a member of the chamber’s board of trustees and future president of the former Sweeney Chevrolet and Sweeney. Buick GMC dealers in Boardman serve as interim executive director.
“We’re on the map,” Sweeney said, adding that the region is “well-positioned to claim our slice of the pie. “
“The governor sees it, JobsOhio recognizes it, and now it’s up to us to make it happen,” Sweeney Blackann said.
The business network, elected officials and other officials, as well as network leaders, requested it and helped make their case to the state, he said.
“Our case detailed the unique landscape and geographic benefits that make us stand out as an engine of economic development, from the ports of Lake Erie and the Ohio River to the strong border economy we share from Erie to Pittsburgh and the Appalachian designation we proudly carry. We’ve never been more aligned as a region,” said Sweeney Blackann.
STRUCTURE
Terry Slaybaugh, vice president of sites and infrastructure at JobsOhio, said the corporate budget of the network’s seven partners, all of whom have two-year contracts, includes business development, sites and skills.
Lake to River has been incubated within the regional chamber and, in fact, several chamber members have been transferred to the new organization, which will have its workplace at the City Center One construction site in downtown Youngstown.
It’s the same building that houses the chamber, the Western Reserve Port Authority, the Eastgate Regional Council of Governments and the Youngstown Foundation, all of which, Blackann said, were instrumental in building the lake to the river.
In the meantime, JobsOhio will complete the next six to eight months of education for Lake to River staff on how to speak up and propose economic advancement opportunities and programs. The NEO team will continue with the projects and corporations that JobsOhio has active projects with, and little by little, by the end of the year, those that will move from the lake to the river, Slaybaugh said.
ROOM REMOVALS
“This groundbreaking announcement allows the regional chamber and its many partners to draw your attention to the conversion of our economic progress landscape to capitalize on a generational opportunity for expansion that has emerged over the past four years,” said Guy Coviello, president and CEO of the chamber. . saying.
Among the challenges, he said, will be population growth, expanding housing inventory and creating public policies that result in more sites ready for advertising development.
Coviello said the camera has had “tremendous success” with the Cleveland-based NEO team. Lake to River, he said, “overlaps more accurately with our service domain so that, in combination, we can better align with the demanding opportunities and situations of our region. “
Among those opportunities are additive manufacturing, petroleum and herbal fuel in the Utica shale, and the valley’s participation in electric, autonomous and connected mobility, sectors that Coviello says give “the region sustainable competitive merit to grow the economy. “
Do you have a story? Email business writer Ron Selak Jr. at rselak@tribtoday. com.
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