Tonight, the City Council will hear from its Innovation Park Task Force. The group has spent the last year-and-a-half researching possible locations for a business park.
"What we landed on was a dispersed model."
That's City Councilwoman Rochelle Swanson who worked with the
task force. She explains a "dispersed model" takes into
consideration all the existing vacant office space in town as well
as larger chunks of undeveloped land.
Swanson says a variety of sites would put the city in the best
position to attract new businesses. And that will help drive the
local economy.
"We are a community that's really gotten by on property
taxes and some sales tax revenue alone and we need to be more
dynamic and to be able to also bring it in by having more jobs here
locally rather than also having to have a large part of our
community commute."
Some of the undeveloped land the city is looking at includes
parcels in the Fifth Street corridor and on the east and west side
of city limits.