Taking Care of Business

The city is set to present its economic development plan to the city council members and the public on May 2 during a special called meeting, and officials are expected to vote on the concept.

This plan details development that the city, and its business growth partners, believes will increase wealth opportunities and put a new face on downtown and surrounding areas.  

Last fall when the city hired Eric Van Otteren as the city’s economic development manager, they placed the mission of growing the local economy in his hands. With a background in economic development, planning and community development, Van Otteren has assumed responsibilities to get this plan approved, implemented and enacted.

Unlike his predecessor that concentrated on events as a catalyst to spur economic development, Van Otteren will oversee a plan utilizing a three-prong strategy. This plan will combine two traditional methods with a new approach.

“There are three areas of economic development. Two of them are typical, attracting (new businesses) and retention (of existing businesses).  The new piece that many economic developers are adding in now is entrepreneurship,” said Van Otteren.

Partnering with the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce and Gwinnett Partnership, the city will depend on both of these organizations to attract and recruit new businesses.  Both organizations represent the county as a whole and are considered to be experts at promoting the county. They identify companies looking to relocate or establish a presence, to put Gwinnett County into play as a viable option.

To help with retaining the estimated 5,000 businesses that have set up shop in the city, another partnership was formed with the Snellville Commerce Club.

“We started in 1984, as a group of business people in the Snellville area who were interested in getting together to share ideas,” said Jon Richards, commerce club member. “We have more of a civic orientation; more civic involvement and improving communities and schools.”

The group also plays a role in community improvements, including input regarding the development of the continuous flow interchange at Main Street and U.S. Highway 124 and the development of downtown. To assist existing businesses during these future changes, the city is also in the process of creating a relocation and retention plan for affected merchants.

In the past the city’s business growth depended on housing construction and a growth in population. However, that population increase of the early 2000s has slowed some, and the mayor has said that he expects revitalization of business and jobs to be the key to future growth for the city.

The goal now is to broaden its economic base by bringing a formidable in. The concept is proposed in direct correlation to the third area of economic development, entrepreneurship. This, according to Van Otteren, is the path that more and more young people are interested in pursuing.

Over time, these entrepreneurs are then expected to start small businesses that outnumber large corporation in hiring. One-year-old businesses create one million jobs, and 10-year-old companies only create 300,000, said Van Otteren, citing statistics from the Kauffman Foundation.

To accommodate innovation and to energize the interest of young people as entrepreneurs, the city is considering economic gardening and social entrepreneurship programs. To reach an even younger audience of entrepreneurs the city is looking at the Young Entrepreneurs Academy program. In this program high school students are required to go through steps of starting a business. Another program under consideration will target eighth- and ninth-grade students.

In addition, the city will aim to address the needs of entrepreneurs in a mid-career change or retirees. It also plans to continue working to retain existing businesses, as city looks to bring its vision of a new downtown into realization.  

“In the end game that is what economic development is all about,” Van Otteren said. “Bringing wealth into the community, to grow the resources, to expand the tax base, to help communities to grow and to provide more and better services.”