MANSFIELD — Jessica Gribben said Thursday successful economic development requires playing the long game.
But in a mid-year report to the Richland County Board of Commissioners, the president and CEO of the Richland Area Chamber & Economic Development said many of the “long game” efforts of the past several years have produced recent big wins.
“If we would have seen this report back then and said all of these things are happening in your community right now, I think we would have been shocked and awed,” Gribben said.
Gribben led a contingent of chamber officials meeting with commissioners, who agreed in 2021 to fund the economic development work done around the county. It started as $100,000 annually and has since increased to $115,000 per year.
Chamber officials meet with commissioners twice a year to go over progress.
(Below is a PDF of the report presented to Richland County commissioners on Thursday from the Richland Area Chamber & Economic Development.)
The report cited progress in numerous areas, including manufacturing expansions of Newman Technology and R.G. Smith in Mansfield, as well as the Downtown Forward project, aimed at creating 102 residential living units in 14 historic downtown buildings.
It also cites development efforts in Bellville, especially along the Ohio 97/I-71 corridor and also in downtown Shelby.
“I think sometimes we don’t celebrate our wins as much as we should. The Downtown Forward Project is an incredible win for the city of Mansfield and for Richland County as a whole, because Mansfield is our county seat,” Gribben said during the hour-long session.
“What goes well (in Mansfield) leads out to the rest of the county.”
She said public infrastructure investment in Mansfield and around the county has led to new private investment in business and housing.
“We said, ‘Hey, we’re going to work on all this public infrastructure and it’s going to lead to private investment.’ It’s happening. There’s an ecosystem happening here,” Gribben said.
“We’re getting attraction opportunities … companies that call in or they come from all different angles. We’re taking advantage of those and and working on landing those planes.
“If I go back to where I started and look at what we’ve accomplished and the things that are happening, we kind of gloss over it a little bit because we’ve moved on to something else.
“It is a long game, but these are incredible transformational projects happening across the county. It’s incredible,” Gribben said.
Barrett Thomas, senior director of economic development at the chamber, quickly agreed.
“We have traditionally been bad at telling our story. So we’re trying,” he said. “These meetings are really helpful for us to make sure that we get the report together so that there’s something that goes out and it’s clear what’s been done.
“We don’t often say how effective we are, but I would say over the past several years, when we look at the tools that we’ve used and how we’re packaging these incentives together to apply to a specific company for a specific project, we are far more effective in doing that and leveraging all the right resources,” Thomas said.
Gribben said the chamber’s top priority in the next six months is development on and around Mansfield Lahm Regional Airport, along with site development and outbound marketing.
Thomas recently presented to Mansfield City Council a blueprint for development over the next five years. (Below is a PDF of the airport development plan.)
“I think that’s a focus: how do we best utilize that (airport) asset to attract business or grow business here in Richland County?” Gribben said.
Clint Knight, the chamber’s director of workforce development, said it’s essential that companies considering locating around the airport be able to find workers prepared to do the jobs.
“What do we need to do? The first thing we need to do is figure out, ‘Do we have the talent to attract those businesses that we need?’ So, let’s build an aviation career day partnership with all the schools and vendors from around the region.
“We’re in our third year (of aviation career days). We went from 40 students two years ago. This year we’re expecting over 100 students and that’s the kind of long-term play that we talk about.
“(It’s) not just being able to get those big wins, but how do we put the systems and the things in place that make sure we have the assets to attract those wins,” Knight said.
Tom Vanderhorst, financial specialist for the chamber, said tools such as the Richland County Port Authority help make deals possible and more attractive to companies and developers.
He said the local port authority will soon consider sales tax incentives for materials for the Downtown Forward project and also for the Newman Technology expansion.
“The Mansfield Forward project will very interesting because this will be the first time that we’ve actually dealt with building materials that were imported, which will affect the taxability of them,” Vanderhorst said.
Downtown Forward is a project led by the Richland County Foundation and Windsor Companies from Delaware County, using buildings donated to RCF by John and Mimi Fernyak.
“I mean, it’s about a $30 million improvement — stop and think about it — because there’s no site acquisition here. If they had to do site acquisition, it’s probably going to be about a $50 million improvement,” Vanderhorst said.
Donnie Clark, the chamber’s economic development project manager, said the county is poised for growth.
“I’m an entrepreneur, an agriculturalist and an economic developer in this county,” said Clark, who founded Elzy Milling & Trade and Elzy Farms in the Bellville area.
“I love doing all three and I see opportunity for all three. This is a good (chamber) team that’s going to get us there.
“Our entrepreneurs in this area are building to be in great shape over the next couple of years and our farmers continue raising the crops,” Clark said.
“I love it here.”
