From the President
Louis Jambois
 |
In late June, an unprecedented event quietly occurred in the Twin Cities. The event involved hosting eight national site selectors on an informational site tour of our region. The local partners included the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce, the City of Saint Paul, the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, the Itasca Project, and, of course, the Saint Paul Port Authority.
The three-day tour marks the first time all of these partners have worked together to showcase the region. The participating site selectors represent a small group of professional consultants whose primary work is to find suitable locations for business locations and expansions.
Information presented to them was wide-ranging and included the area’s cost of doing business, infrastructure, regulation, workforce, transportation systems, our network of educational institutions and available sites. We also touted our quality of life. Local corporate real estate experts including Doyle Shea, of 3M Co. and Jim Scannell of Travelers Insurance provided their perspectives on the Twin Cities’ business climate, as compared to the many other locations where those companies do business. The site selectors also heard from Mayors Chris Coleman and R.T. Rybak on why the Twin Cities is such a great place to live and do business. They heard from Dan McElroy, the Commissioner of DEED, Frank Cerra from the University of Minnesota, and Doug Baker from Ecolab.
I had the great pleasure of hosting our guests on a bus tour of three of our business centers – Williams Hill and Westminster Junction and Beacon Bluff. All three are great examples of the Port Authority’s Brownfields-to-Thriving Businesses capabilities.
As we toured further down Phalen Boulevard to Beacon Bluff, they were able to watch contamination cleanup and demolition work on two of the parcels, construction activities at the new Baldinger Bakery plant, and the finishing touches being put on the new HealthEast Medical Transportation facility.
The site selectors were genuinely interested in how the Port turns brownfields into jobs and tax base. They asked great questions and gave me a wonderful opportunity to show off our skills. They were impressed by the quality of our cleanup efforts, the incentives we could offer, and they were very impressed by the quality and appearance of our finished business centers. If they had half as much fun on the tour as I had, they had a really great time.
But perhaps the most important segment of the entire event was a feedback presentation given by the site selectors. They were gracious, but candid. Their comments included some things that we’ve all heard including the need to continue to work on our general business climate. They also stressed the notion that Minnesota is a great place to do business and a too well-kept secret. We need to cooperate, brand, market and recruit regionally, they said. They thought our three-day event was a good first step, but that we need to organize and implement an on-going effort.
In all, the event was a demonstration to all of us that businesses, public officials and development organizations can work together to market our region’s strengths. There also was a common understanding that by working together, we will increase our prospects for future prosperity.
