For more than 20 years, Commerce Lexington has been leading business attraction and retention efforts for Lexington and the region. Businesses looking to relocate or establish themselves do not recognize county lines when looking to attract workforce or compare site locations, because of that, Commerce Lexington has helped cultivate greater collaboration among the economic development professionals throughout the region with the Bluegrass Alliance.
The Bluegrass Alliance markets the larger nine-county geographic area to site selectors and business targets to be more competitive with larger metro cities for labor force, business sites, housing inventory, and education and training resources. When a company locates in one community, there are substantial direct and induced economic impacts for all the communities in the region.
Within the recently developed Regional Competitiveness Plan are three specific action items to help increase economic competitiveness for jobs within the Greater Lexington Region. Our region, like many others around the nation, is stronger when we compete together to move all our communities forward.
These key action items include:
- Increase investment in regional branding, marketing, and site selector awareness of key sectors with a focus on quality-of-life strengths and new land/building availability for jobs. Many competitor regions outspend the Bluegrass Region 3-to-1 on marketing efforts, so greater collaboration allows for more efficient and effective message targeting.
- Support a multi-jurisdictional product development strategy to secure more shovel-ready land and buildings, including a mega-site business park (500-1,000 acres of shovel ready, contiguous land). The region’s lack of sites is a competitive disadvantage that must be addressed. No product means no jobs.
- Educate key leaders in the region about economic development needs and competitive realities to better prepare each community for job attraction success.
Over the next several months, Commerce Lexington and the members of the Regional Leadership Council are focused on the following tactics to achieve the key action items above.
1. Updating the Regional Job Attraction Website (locateinlexington.com)
- Updates should reflect new regional branding, add additional quality of life messaging, and ensure design alignment with a new regional talent website.
2. Increasing Engagement with Top Selectors
- Engage with 100+ site selectors and key business targets, host site selector events to increase awareness of regional assets and increase attendance at trade shows that support strategic industry targets and connections with industry leaders.
3. Hosting Economic Development Briefings with Key Regional Leaders
- Commerce Lexington’s Economic Development team will continue to prioritize meeting with regional leaders to share economic development resources and help communities prepare for business attraction success.
4. Key Sector Marketing and Engagement Strategies
- During The Regional Summit on November 29, Commerce Lexington will share the updated Targeted Industry Analysis recently completed by Economic Leadership. The analysis examined existing and growing industry clusters in the region, trends for the region’s top industry sectors, marketing strategies and best practices, and recommendations to increase regional attraction of key sectors.
The goal of the Regional Competitiveness Plan is to increase jobs, median wages and GDP in the region to at least the national average. Creating change in these areas would not only positively impact business and industry in terms of increased workforce and growth opportunities, but also local governments, schools, and residents through additional resources, services, housing, and greater quality of life amenities within the region. Continued collaboration among business, government and economic development leaders toward these common goals is essential to future regional economic success.
