Grow Cedar Valley reports strong pipeline, shovel-ready sites and Count Me In priorities to county supervisors

Grow Cedar Valley presented its year-end economic-development report to the Black Hawk County Board of Supervisors on June 30, highlighting business-retention work, recent attraction activity and workforce programs.

Katie Susong, president and CEO of Grow Cedar Valley, said the organization completed 61 business-retention-and-expansion (BRE) visits over the past year covering 6,945 employees and identified nine manufacturers considering physical expansions. She said the BRE data are used to connect companies with incentives, grants and other resources and are also shared in aggregate with state partners.

"When we have our BRE visits, what we're doing is we're connecting with businesses and we're garnering information from them on the things that they're contending with," Susong said, describing the group's role in linking firms to resources.

Lisa Scubel, vice president of economic development, reported 12 new projects in the last six months representing roughly $224 million in potential capital investment and 7,745 jobs; the organization said its fiscal-year pipeline included 31 new projects totaling just over $1 billion in potential investment. Scubel also noted two local industrial parks received a platinum shovel-ready designation from the Site Selection Guild, a status she said improves speed-to-market for prospective companies.

"The platinum designation is the highest allowed by the guild program and our two parks represent only six across the U.S. at this level," Scubel said.

Stephanie Deweiler, director of talent and workforce, said workforce and talent attraction remain a central focus and outlined programs to retain interns, convene employers and build a regional ecosystem. Grow Cedar Valley said it is incorporating the January Count Me In population study into a five-year strategic plan and will develop a regional dashboard of core metrics (median wages, childcare access, transportation and other measures) for county use.

Supervisors asked about timing and scope; Susong said some of the nine near-term priorities will be initiated and completed this year while others will extend across the five-year plan. The group offered to provide detailed materials and presentations to supervisors and to meet with county staff on data needs.

Ending: Grow Cedar Valley offered to return with additional details and the board thanked the presenters; no formal county action or funding request was taken at the meeting.