Not all communities have an equal opportunity for success. For decades, rural communities have been home to the U.S. manufacturing base, and now face declining population statistics. Urban centers are home to the wealthiest zip codes and some of the poorest with wide discrepancies in educational and income levels located just blocks apart. The federal government has several programs that work to address community development challenges in urban and rural centers, but most state economic development and private sector economic development groups focus more on company retention and attraction and less on community development.
JobsOhio, the state’s private sector economic development not-for-profit corporation, have proven they can walk and chew gum at the same time by aggressively promoting Ohio as a great place to do business through strong business retention and expansion efforts, but they are also focused on helping struggling communities through the Vibrant Community Program. The JobsOhio Vibrant Communities Program was established to assist distressed, small and mid-sized cities with catalytic development projects that fulfill a market need and represent a significant reinvestment in the community. This program recognizes that distressed communities often do not have adequate resources to support these types of economic development projects that can attract private investment and create new jobs opportunities, and the program focuses on supporting a catalytic project they lack the resources to support.
The primary focus for the Vibrant Community Program is on generating reinvestment in eligible distressed communities that have experienced chronic disinvestment with projects that have at least one identified end-user, however, this end-user does not have to align with JobsOhio target industries. These projects must lead to significantly improved quality of place to improve employer and employee retention and attraction spurring on future development and increase real estate inventory, real estate appraisal value, attract capital investment, and job creation potential in participating communities.
JobsOhio focuses the Vibrant Community Program on a targeted number of communities across the state and funding will typically not exceed $1 million per project and should not exceed 50% of eligible costs unless authorized by the JobsOhio President. Eligible applicants include municipalities with populations under 75,000 and poverty rates that are at or above the state’s average poverty rate are eligible for support but the project beneficiary who is the recipient of the grant funds may be the owner of the building/property, developer, or other project company. Currently, it is estimated that 110 Ohio cities qualify for the Vibrant Community Program as listed below.
Either the applicant or project beneficiary should have control of the property in question or have a cooperative agreement with property owners; however, at minimum, the community must present a feasible plan to control the property. The project beneficiary cannot be the contaminator of environmental issues, if such issues exist, and JobsOhio may allow a project in townships contiguous to an eligible municipality if the project meets all other eligibility criteria. Projects may include renovation of existing buildings, new construction, or a combination of both, may be defined as a single building or parcel, or multiple buildings and parcels in the same area, but must have an eligible anchor tenant, or tenants, committed to at least 30% of the Project’s usable square footage.
Operated shared spaces such as business incubators, accelerators, innovation centers, maker spaces, and co-working spaces that contribute to the business community as well as workforce may be an anchor tenant, however, they must meet additional requirements, including: shared spaces must target appropriate users, preferably within defined JobsOhio target industries but may also include small and early-stage businesses, and operation of the space must be managed by an experienced entity. Applications must include a business plan, financials and proforma for review, and co-working spaces must also provide programming such as small business assistance, technical training, and other workshops that assist businesses or individuals in a targeted way. Eligible required anchor tenants and other end-uses anchor tenants may fall outside of JobsOhio targeted industries; however, the number and quality of jobs are a program consideration.
The JobsOhio Vibrant Community program offers cities across Ohio an opportunity to spur redevelopment through major civic projects. Other states should consider this program a model for future investment.
Contact Ryan Scribner, Director of Public-Private-Partnership for the Montrose Group at [email protected] if you need assistance with a JobsOhio Vibrant Community or other community development or economic development planning matter.
