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"Forge Consensus Minus Boundaries, Penn Northwest Told"
"By Hal Johnson GREENVILLE, Pa., -- A self-confessed election junkie, Larry Segal, executive director of the Governor's Housing and Community Revitalization, watched Mercer County's Web site as the votes came in against the consolidation in the Shenango Valley. Voters defeated a referendum that would have merged Sharon, Hermitage, Farrell, Sharpsville, and Wheatland. "You have to do this as a region," Segal said at last night's annual meeting of Penn-Northwest Development Corp., held at Thiel College. "If we forge consensus and forge our priorities without regards to boundaries, then we can significantly change Mercer County," he said. Segal works with economic development departments in all 67 counties in Pennsylvania and has been in Mercer County more than a dozen times in the first two years of Gov. Ed Rendell's term. Segal started with a similar position in the administration of former Gov. Tom Ridge, now director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Penn-Northwest's plans and strategies are "dead-on with the governor's agenda," Segal said. The governor's agenda "is all about place. Pennsylvania is an older state, but we have to make Pennsylvania an attractive place to do business here," he said. To do so, the governor is proposing to put more money into infrastructure development, as well as funding economic development. By the end of Rendell's term, the governor would like to see infrastructure funding at $50 million, Segal said. The state Legislature has passed the governor's $2.3 billion economic development package. "If we are going to invest $2.3 billion into the economy, we'd better do it well," Segal said of the governor's agenda. To do so, "we need to get away from the application-review model," he explained. Instead, the governor wants to hold regional summits, he said, so he can get to know the local players in a particular project and its goals. As an example of a project that defies municipal boundaries, Larry Reichard, Penn-Northwest Development Corp. executive director, cited the stateline industrial park proposal. Penn-Northwest is working out the details to buy 82 acres in Hermitage from the neighboring Farrell Redevelopment Authority. The $1.7 million project could result in 300 to 400 jobs and $3 million -- to $5 million in private investment, Reichard said. The project also is in a Keystone Opportunity Zone, which encourages private investment by absolving developers from state and local taxes for up to 12 years. The stateline industrial park project is a part of Penn-Northwest's Strategies 1000, which is an effort to buy and develop 1,000 acres in Mercer County over 10 years. The county suffers from a limited site inventory to offer developers, especially along the Interstate 80 corridor, Reichard said. "We have had numerous lost opportunities because we have not had the sites ready for development," he said. Penn-Northwest is taking an active role in helping townships around the Prime Outlet Mall to upgrade its sewers, Reichard continued. "If not, it could shut down the mall," he warned. Reichard also detailed Penn Northwest's activities in the last year. His progress report noted: The Mercer County college internship program funded 58 interns in local companies and leveraged $487,192 in private investment.The retention call program made 240 calls and offered direct assistance to 32% of the companies at which calls were made.Penn-Northwest participated in 52 business attraction projects in the past year and proposed 44 more projects.Penn-Northwest offered marketing assistance to LindenPointe Innovative Business Campus in Hermitage and to the Greenville-Reynolds Industrial Development. Penn-Northwest helped the Grove City area obtain $13 million in state assistance for infrastructure development. The annual meeting included the re-election of board members. There are William G. Perrin, board chairman; Charles Bestwick, Michelle Brooks and Greg Koledin, vice chairpersons; Linda Dudjak, secretary; and John Mastrian, treasurer.Visit Penn Northwest Development Corp."