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WRPA to Join Pittsburgh in Seeking EDA Designation
VIENNA TOWNSHIP, Ohio – The Mahoning Valley will join with the Pittsburgh area to submit an application for a federal designation that would provide the region an advantage in terms of seeking federal economic development funds for targeted manufacturing sectors.
During the port authority's meeting, board members also voted to relieve its executive director, Rose Ann DeLeon, of her duties and approved local match for federal funds to help attract United Airlines (READY STORY).
Sarah Lown, senior economic development manager for the Western Reserve Port Authority, informed members of the port authority’s board of directors at its regularly scheduled monthly meeting Wednesday of the decision to collaborate with Pittsburgh.
At the port authority meeting last month, Lown said her office was putting together an application for one of 12 “Investing in Manufacturing Communities Partnership” designations to be awarded by the U.S. Economic Development Administration. The early focus was on putting together an application that would cover a seven-county region that included Mahoning, Trumbull, Columbiana and Ashtabula counties in Ohio and Mercer, Lawrence and Beaver counties in Pennsylvania.
Following a 10-day analysis of the six areas to be focused on in the application -- workforce and training, supplier network, trade and exports, research and innovation, infrastructure and site development, and access to capital, “the pillars identified by” EDA as “integral” to economic development efforts -- “we found that we were not strong in some of them and that it would be more competitive if we partnered with Pittsburgh,” she said.
“Further, if we come together as a region, we’ll call it the TechBelt Makes Region,” she continued. The TechBelt Initiative, co-founded by U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-13 Ohio, combined institutions initially stretching from Cleveland though the Mahoning Valley to Pittsburgh, and now including West Virginia, to support economic development.
“We think we’ll be more competitive as a region in the world market,” Lown noted.
The application, which is due April 14, will focus on precision manufacturing -- additive manufacturing, specifically, to lend momentum to the efforts already under way in the area, including America Makes in Youngstown -- and energy technology, tying into the Tech Belt Energy Innovation Center in Warren as well as opportunities associated with the Utica shale play. “We’re going to bring those two areas into focus and develop a plan with Pittsburgh to undertake those activities and create a solid, forward-thinking manufacturing base in the Valley,” Lown said.
If awarded, the designation would provide preferential treatment for funding from 13 federal agencies to advance the identified sectors in the application, Lown said. In addition, a technical adviser would be assigned to assist with coordinating and implementing the approved plan.
“We’ve agreed to the terms with Pittsburgh and we’ve identified the governance structure and the future steps,” she elaborated. In the course of analyzing the six focus areas, plans were created to increase capacity in the six identified areas and federal grants will be pursued to that end as part of the application.
“Those grants are going to be written into the initial proposal so we don’t have to compete with Pittsburgh,” she remarked. “We’re going to share with Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh has identified activities that they want to pursue. Those will go in the grant [application] as well so we’re going out of the gate with a win-win kind of arrangement.
Additionally, the port authority board heard from Toby Rittner, president and CEO of the Council of Development Finance Agencies, which is working with the port authority to develop a strategic plan. The agency, which relies on peer consulting, has selected three individuals from its membership as its advisory team to help prepare the strategic plan. A background report is already completed and a SWOT -- strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats -- analysis will begin later this month.
The plan will cover what the port authority is now and where the board wants it to be in 10 years along with issues such as governance, funding and programming, Rittner said. “It’s going to be a soup-to-nuts look at their strengths, their weaknesses, their opportunities, their threats, and how best to take advantage of the port authority's ability ato finance economic development and support industry and infrastructure,” he said.
“We don’t want our plans to become an item that goes in your folder,” he stressed. “The plan is the plan and the idea is to direct you.”
Rittner noted that his organization did a strategic plan for the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority, which faced “considerably larger challenges.” He said part of Detroit/Wayne County’s strategic plan is to urge adoption of Ohio’s law regarding port authorities, which have greater capabilities.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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