Economic Development Strategic Plan Services

The vendor required to provide economic development strategic plan for include:
•    Identify and capitalize on county's economic strengths and assets
•    Address key constraints (e.g., infrastructure, workforce skills, housing, broadband)
•    Diversify the economic base
•    Encourage entrepreneurship and small business growth
•    Enhance workforce development and education alignment
•    Improve quality of place and amenities to retain and attract talent
•    Identify collaborative and alignment strategies that can be integrated into other county initiatives, including town comprehensive plans and land use codes
•    Develop metrics and implementation plans to monitor progress.
- Requirement:
1. Stakeholder engagement
•    Conduct interviews, focus groups, and workshops with key stakeholders, including business leaders, government and municipal officials, educational institutions, and community groups. 
•    Administer surveys of residents and businesses to understand needs, aspirations, and concerns. 
•    Conduct selects interviews (in-person or via video conference) with the following groups.
2. Demographic update
•    Analyze demographic data for county and compare it with trends in central state based on the most recent census and acs data.
•    Project population growth or decline, age distribution, migration patterns, workforce availability, and other relevant demographic indicators over a 5–10-year horizon.
3. Economic assessment and current conditions analysis
•    Evaluate economic indicators including employment by industry sector, income levels, labor force participation, and business activity.
•    Evaluate existing business parks, including the acre park.
•    Assess industry clusters important to county, including manufacturing, agriculture, tourism, and emerging
•    Identify economic drivers and constraints specific to county within the region.
•    Incorporate recommendations of county's housing strategy (or available draft), which is currently being developed.
4. Anticipated economic changes
•    Conduct a swot analysis for county and a separate swot analysis of the current structure and operations in light of the updated strategy.
•    Forecast the economic impact of regional infrastructure developments, business investments, and policy initiatives.
•    Provide insights into expected economic and demographic shifts regionally and locally, considering technology adoption, workforce trends, and regional competition.
•    Target sector identification:
o    Analyze sectors with growth potential for county.
o    Recommend sectors to prioritize for business attraction and expansion.
•    Assess the anticipated impact of future developments on the county economy.
•    Evaluate the economic impact of increased remote employment and county's opportunity to capitalize on quality-of-place assets.
5. Strategic framework development and goal alignment
•    Develop a clear strategic framework that links the county's vision and core economic development goals to specific objectives, strategies, and actionable projects, ensuring each recommended initiative directly supports one or more adopted goals. 
•    The consultant should meet with the designated steering committee at the commencement of the engagement to align on strategic priorities.

Budget: $75,000–$130,000