Welcome to the Business Journal Archives
Search for articles below, or continue to the all new BusinessJournalDaily.com now.
Search
WRPA Seeks EDA Designation for 7-County Region
VIENNA TOWNSHIP, Ohio – A designation being pursued by the Western Reserve Port Authority would give a seven-county region covering northeastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania a leg up on federal funding opportunities, a port authority economic development specialist says.
The port authority is applying for one of 12 "Investing in Manufacturing Communities Partnership" designations to be awarded by the U.S. Economic Development Administration. The designation is being sought on behalf of a region comprised of Mahoning, Trumbull, Columbiana and Ashtabula counties in Ohio and Mercer, Lawrence and Beaver counties in Pennsylvania.
The port authority’s board of directors Wednesday approved spending up to $10,000 to prepare the application, which is due March 14.
The designation, if approved, would provide the seven-county region with preferential treatment for funding from 13 federal agencies to promote, in particular, an advanced manufacturing sector in the region, said Sarah Lown, senior economic development manager for the port authority. In addition to EDA, the agencies include the Department of Transportation, National Science Foundation and Appalachian Regional Commission. A technical adviser would also be provided to provide support for coordinating and implementing the approved plan.
“We want to look at additive manufacturing and we want to create a coordinated system among the seven counties where we have a real flow to promote that production and that area,” Lown said.
“And then we look at six different areas” -- workforce development, supply chains, export promotion, infrastructure, capital requirements, and research and development -- “to promote development in that sector,” she continued. “We need a strategy in all six sectors to promote additive manufacturing. So it’s a way of accelerating what we have and creating an economic impact in that one sector.”
Midstream and downstream energy production would be a secondary focus because of the possible ethane cracker project in Beaver County, the Tech Belt Energy Innovation Center in Warren and the Marcellus and Utica shale plays in the region, she added.
“We can demonstrate that that is an emerging industry based on the number of new wells and the production counts and so forth,” Lown said. “We hope to instead of having that all piped out down to New Orleans and out to China that we begin to find some downstream manufacturing related opportunities.”
Representatives of Routh Hurlbert Real Estate in Warren have appeared before the port authority to advocate establishing a network of pipelines along existing right-of-ways, such as state Route 11, bike trails and rail easements, to distribute liquids from area wells. Such a network would make the region more attractive to processing plants and other operations serving the industry.
“It’s all about jobs,” said Ron Klingle, chairman of the port authority’s economic development committee. “Communities have to position themselves to be on the same page and to provide incentives for business to come into our community. If we’re all working together it’s much easier to do.”
The goal is to help enable regions to better plan their manufacturing strategies in the region and coalesce plans to more effectively compete globally, said Richard Lonardo, principal consultant with Defense & Energy Systems in Youngstown, a consultant working with the port authority to prepare the EDA application. “We have to convince the Economic Development Administration that we have a strategic plan that shows we’re a manufacturing community of excellence,” he said.
“It’s a good opportunity to bring individuals from economic development and workforce development together to really align some of the strategies that still may be siloed right now,” said Jessica Borza, sector partnership coordinator with the Oh-Penn Manufacturing Collaborative, which is working with the port authority on the workforce segment.
Oh-Penn, which includes five of the seven counties to be covered under the proposed federal designation, and the Mahoning Valley Manufacturers Coalition, which Borza serves as executive director, “certainly have an interest in the designation and the opportunity that this presents,” she remarked.
“We also feel like no matter what the outcome is, whether we achieve the official designation or not, there’s a real benefit in various aspects of the community coming together to develop and agree to a coherent plan in support of the existing industry and growth of manufacturing,” she added.
“We had a week-long conversation with Pittsburgh. They wanted us to join them,” Lown said. “It was a tough decision because they bring so much to the table but we feel we need to build our own capacity and our own leadership ability. Even if we don’t win it, we have a strategy we can implement and we’ve built the capacity of our leaders to plan and understand what it’s going to take. That’s a big, big thing.”
Once the application is submitted, Lown says she expects to learn by mid-May or possibly later whether it has been approved. The process could take longer because EDA does not have a director. The U.S. Senate has yet to act on President Obama’s nomination of former Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams’ nomination to head EDA.
Williams has been supportive “in an advisory capacity” of the port authority’s efforts to prepare the application, Lown said.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
CLICK HERE to subscribe to our twice-monthly print edition and to our free daily email.