Today’s Morning Buzz is brought to you by Alexander Fung, Economic Development Manager from the City of Eastvale, CA. Connect with Alexander on LinkedIn.
- What I’m reading: “You’re in Charge — Now What?” by Thomas J. Neff and James M. Citrin
- What I’m watching: Season 2 of “Severance”
- What I’m working on: Preparing Eastvale for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics
How Business Attraction Works from a Municipality’s Perspective
Economic development is defined as activities that encourage investments in a local economy and enhance the quality of life for a community. In addition to handling business attraction activities, most economic development corporations and teams focus on creating jobs, supporting local businesses, building the local workforce, and addressing emerging issues that may impact their communities’ quality of life.
Most shopping centers across the nation are owned by private companies, not municipalities. This implies that local governments generally cannot choose which stores or businesses open in their jurisdictions’ shopping centers. It is up to the shopping centers’ property owners to decide, as long as their tenants provide products and services that are allowed. With this in mind, proactive economic development teams work to partner with local shopping center owners and influence, incentivize, and inspire businesses to choose to open or expand in their communities. Local governments also have the ability to adjust zoning policies to designate specific areas for commercial use, ensuring businesses have the space to thrive without conflicting with residential or industrial areas.
How Businesses Determine Site Selection Decisions
Businesses look for what is working in a retail market and try to replicate that success elsewhere. They consider the retail demographics, traffic accessibility, expansion costs, local competition, and available sites when looking at potential expansions. It is important to note that company financials, as well as financial market conditions, also lead to companies’ decisions to either expand or close stores. Even though a local government does not control individual businesses that are brought into each shopping center, a proactive economic development team would partner with each property owner and developer to attract businesses that residents desire.
How Eastvale Leads with Proactive Business Attraction Activities
The City of Eastvale’s Economic Development Team manages various business attraction strategies to encourage desirable businesses to choose Eastvale. Activities include strategically networking with brokers, business owners, and developers to market Eastvale’s retail opportunities, using innovative strategies to create additional retail space when the city’s available land is limited, developing and providing financial incentives for desirable businesses (with the city council’s feedback and approval) when appropriate, streamlining permitting and licensing processes to reduce bureaucratic hurdles for businesses, and implementing strong marketing strategies to promote the advantages of Eastvale’s retail opportunities.
Additionally, the city periodically attends trade shows and conferences to connect with desirable businesses, utilizes data analytics to present the latest trends and information to generate interest in Eastvale’s market, promotes business-friendly policies, and encourages public infrastructure investments.
Many of these strategies require the support, buy-in, and assistance from other municipal departments within the local government agency, such as Communications, Building & Safety, Engineering, Finance, Fire, Planning, Public Safety, and Public Works. To gain buy-in from other city departments, Eastvale’s Economic Development Team also prioritizes building strong inter-departmental relationships, aligns business-friendly policies with other departments’ shared goals, and utilizes data to demonstrate positive outcomes.
Engaging department leaders early and securing executive support help create a culture where economic development and business attraction activities are seen as collective responsibilities. Additional information regarding the City of Eastvale’s economic development programs is available on the city’s website.