Community Revitalization Desktop Guide

By welcoming new immigrants, communities make themselves more attractive to the American consumer and may experience an upsurge in new business as well. SEE CASE STUDY SEVEN Desire to Shop Nights and Sundays: Several Pennsylvania cities and towns have expanded their retail hours in recent years. These towns understand that most Americans are at work or school during traditional store hours and want to shop at night or on Saturdays or Sundays. Many national retailers explicitly look for a location that is open and active on nights and weekends. Because malls and large shopping centers typically include these kinds of hours within their lease requirements, they had an advantage in the past. By marketing a couple of nights a week for late shopping, Main Streets can attract a larger customer base and more businesses. Hometowns – Places to Come Home To: Current generations of Americans have been more mobile than any other. While some have chosen to move away from the cities and towns where they were born, many are choosing to move back. Nowhere is this truer than in Pennsylvania. Experts on migration say that the most likely second move by anyone who moves away from home is to go back to their origins. Many of those who come back have obtained skills, resources and capital that can beneﬁt their hometown. 40 In addition, an even larger number of former residents would gladly come home if jobs were available. 41 Christopher Briem, a regional economist for University of Pittsburgh Center for Social and Urban Research, estimates that approximately 10,000 former Pittsburgh residents move back to the region each year. Johnstown has focused its economic development plans on luring back nostalgic Johnstown natives who were forced to leave when industry collapsed. SEE CASE STUDY EIGHT Case Studies 7 – 8 7. Immigrants Boost Local Economies: Kutztown University The majority of cities that grew in the past two decades, grew as a result of immigration. Research and experience show that municipalities that attract immigrants see job growth, neighborhood revitalization, an increased tax base, population maintenance or growth, a rise in real estate values, and other beneﬁts. Attracting Latinos makes sense today, for they now constitute the largest minority group in the United States (over 13%) and Latinoowned businesses are currently the fastest-growing business segment in the U.S. The growth rate of the Commonwealth’s Latino-owned ﬁrms was nine percent (9%) higher than the national average and more than nine times the state average for all businesses. In 2006, Kutztown University responded to the growing Latino business community in Lancaster, Reading, Allentown and throughout Pennsylvania, by developing and translating two bilingual online business development courses. The project was a result of a grant from the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Foundation and AT&T Foundation and collaborations between the Berks County Latino Chamber of Commerce and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of the Lehigh Valley. Continuing their focus on Latino business owners, Kutztown University and the Kutztown University Small Business Development Center established the Latino Business Resource Center. The goal was to provide Latino entrepreneurs with business consulting, education, research and business tools that will help them develop thriving businesses. The Center has offered live bilingual business planning courses in Coatesville, Kennett Square and Reading, and plans to offer bilingual online business planning courses and tools, as well as an online forum of Latino business professionals who will answer questions. In the words of Center Director Carlos Ojeda, Jr., “The university is really working hard to mirror the community and neighbors it serves.” The University has become a topchoice school for Latino students. Its efforts are comparable to the State’s efforts to encourage prosperity in the Latino community via the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs (GACLA). The City of Allentown is also partnering with Lehigh University’s Small Business Development Council, Kutztown University’s Latino Business Resource Center, Community Action Development Corporation of the Lehigh Valley and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of the Lehigh Valley to run a bilingual, English-Spanish seminar on the development of a small business. m And in the fall of 2006, Allentown announced new supplier diversity guidelines aiming to give minority- and women-owned businesses more access to city contracts. Said Mayor Ed Pawlowski: “We have to recognize that this is a signiﬁcant part of our population and our economic development depends on reaching out to all segments of our society.” n 8. Helping Manufacturing Start-Ups Grow and Prosper: Johnstown Johnstown’s legacy as a steel town has left it with acres of industrial land and an available skilled workforce. Johnstown seeks to leverage those assets by attracting new industry and manufacturing to the area. Even more importantly, Johnstown is working to develop talented people and businesses in industry at home. At a time when other cities have seen manufacturing as the economy of the past and service as the economy of the future, Johnstown is proving that there are good industrial products and services out there, from powdered metals to wood reﬁnishing, that can support proﬁtable business growth. What the industries need is inexpensive operating costs to get them started and a skilled workforce. To help them, Johnstown economic development groups and Johnstown Area Regional Industries (JARI) have created a single point of contact to nurture small companies. Johnstown helps start-ups get established by offering below market rents, a skilled workforce and special attention. Johnstown has worked with the State to remediate vacant industrial land and buildings and prepare the properties for safe reuse. Then Johnstown and JARI help businesses to expand, to network, and to match proﬁtably to suppliers and customers around the globe. Whether a business needs a complete ﬁnancial package, training for employees in the latest technologies, technical assistance in pursuing government contracts, a review of their business plan, an equipment purchase, or any of a host of other business assistance services, Johnstown provides it. JARI owns three existing industrial/business parks and one incubator facility for small companies to start out in. Linda Thomson, president of JARI, has courted every kind of business over the years. She values a business she attracted from the surrounding suburbs that grew from 5 to 25 employees as much as the huge Gamesa wind power, which will hire over 200 workers in its ﬁrst three years to man two production lines. GOAL ONE: CHOSE GOAL ONE: CHOOSE ONE ASSET-RICH REDEVELOPMENT AREA step two : capitalize on changing demographics and trends 18

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Community Revitalization Desktop Guide

PA Community Revitalization Desktop Guide Table of Contents How To Attract High Impact Investment to Core Communities Goal One: Choose One Asset-Rich Redevelopment Area Interviews with Pennsylvania Mayors Goal Two: Prepare Redevelopment Area for Market Interviews with Developers who Have Invested in Pennsylvania Cities and Towns Goal Three: Welcome Investment Interviews with Developers who Have Invested in Pennsylvania Cities and Towns Goal Four: Apply Strategies That Work Conclusion

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