City looks to the future with new economic plan

Chestermere City Council approved in principle the city’s long term Economic Development Strategy for 2017-2020 at the Jan. 16 council meeting.
“The strategy and the action plan that we have is about putting something together that is feasible structured and clear,” said Manager of Economic Development Jean-Marc Lacasse.
The development strategy sets out the long-term vision for future economic growth, employment and quality of life in Chestermere reaching to the year 2035.
“Things take, sometimes, a long time to get accomplished,” he said.
The Economic Development Strategy envisions a Chestermere in 2035 that will be known as a centre of opportunity in the region, combining quality employment opportunities with lakeside recreation.
New commercial, shopping and entertainment ventures will attract both business to the city and regional visitors.
To accomplish this, Lacasse will be working to attract businesses to Chestermere to create a non-residential tax assessment ratio of approximately 20 per cent.
Right now, the ratio is closer to four per cent non-residential. An increase in this ratio will also lead to an increase of jobs in Chestermere.
In recent years, Chestermere has seen a huge amount of growth, primarily in the residential sector.
Commercial and retail has grown, just not as fast.
Lacasse’s statistics go back to 2009. Since then there has been growth of 149 per cent.
“We’ve had several accomplishments over the last eight, nine years,” he said, “and we’re going to continue that way.”
“We’ve estimated, if we’re successful in this strategy, long term in 20 years-time, perhaps there’ll be 3,500 jobs in a diversified economic base in Chestermere,” said Lacasse.
Although the Economic Development Strategy has plans going until 2035, the plan will be reviewed, updated and presented to council again in 2020 with any changes made necessary by changes in the economy.
“The key is to be flexible and adaptable,” he said.
The reason for the long term for the strategy is because of the need to fit into the growth plans of expanding companies.
“We have to fit in somewhere into a sales process.
“Economic development is about marketing, is about sales and it’s about selling the community,” said Lacasse.
He said that the sales process to attract growing businesses to Chestermere that will provide services for the residents takes a long time.
It’s a little quicker when a business has already identified Chestermere as their preferred location to open for business.
“Even when they’ve identified it you’re talking about one year, two year sometimes three years out,” he said.
When Lacasse has to sell the community to convince a business to come here it can take five years or more before they are open for business.
“That’s why we like to keep our head thinking long term and be on the same time frame that our clients are,” said Lacasse.
To reach these long-term goals, in the shorter term, Lacasse will be focusing on industries and sectors that are thriving in the Calgary region right now.
“We focus on warehousing, distribution, logistics which is something that has continued to grow throughout the recession in the Calgary region,” he said.
Other industries that Lacasse will be working to attract to Chestermere include manufacturing, professional services and technical services.
“There is a trend, which is all over the world actually, to what we call re-shoring manufacturing.” He said, “so bringing it back to Canada, we want to be on that radar screen.”
The key to attracting these businesses to Chestermere is to really highlight the unique advantages the community offers.
When it comes to attracting business and industry to Chestermere the city’s population growth, high household income, the high demand for families to move her and the city’s location are the key advantages.
The population growth helps attract both retail outlets looking for a strong and growing customer base and to industry looking for a workforce.
The location of Chestermere, being close to major highways, logistics hubs and the airport makes moving products into and out of the city very easy.
“That location…saves a lot of money to companies that want to locate here,” he said.
Lacasse spends a lot of his time speaking with companies emphasizing these qualities.
“In 2016 we talked to 244 companies,” he said.
He said that not all of those 244 companies will be interested in opening for business in Chestermere.
Since no two companies have the same business plan each pitch has to be tailored to the company they are talking to.
“There’s always several things that we need to put into that mix,” he said.
“But through the conversation with the companies we can either discard them or focus,” said Lacasse.
As they discover businesses that would be a good fit and show an interest in the city they start focusing their energies on them.
“We bring them down into the sale funnel until hopefully we can make them come to Chestermere,” said Lacasse.