MEMORANDUM

TO:             Roger Stancil, Town Manager

FROM:        Dwight Bassett, Economic Development Officer

DATE:         June 12, 2008

RE:             First Year Activities

The Council decided to place a renewed focus on economic development in the Town by creating the Economic Development Officer position.  During my first year as the Town’s Economic Development Officer, I believe we have achieved positive results for the Town and business community.   We have worked with the Council Committee on Economic Development to host a discussion and draft an Economic Development Strategy for the Town and begun to establish long-term relationships with the business community.

Some of the activities undertaken in the first year, beyond the Economic Development Strategy, include;

• Met with 10 developers to discuss Chapel Hill opportunities,
• Looked at opportunities for non-residential and mixed use developments on 6 sites.
• Held discussions with 11 prospects considering Chapel Hill.
• Worked to assist with 14 development review and permitting issues.
• We have made 13 presentations to community groups and businesses.
• Worked with Madison Marquette to consider and subsequently acquire University Mall / Ram’s Plaza.
• In conjunction with the Town Manager, began an evaluation of the Internal Development Review process.
• Worked to began building a relationship with SCORE and the SBTDC for future small business development.
• Attended several regional economic forecast presentations.
• Worked with Terri Dowd of A Southern Season to facilitate the opening of the Farmer’s Market at University Mall.
• Gathered data to better understand the market conditions and future needs for Chapel Hill.
• Worked on drafting ideas of how to utilize our Energy savings legislation to help in supporting new development projects.

The Town Manager assigned three initial goals to work on in the first year for Economic Development;

1. From existing Town plans, develop an economic development strategy we can share and gain consensus from the Council and staff.
2. Assist in review of development process and identify process improvements.  Remembering the statement I always hear: we like the results but we hate the process.
3. Begin to identify specific projects and work on them.  It seems reasonable to me that we could make substantial progress in some aspects of a project within the first 12 months.

We have made significant progress on each of the three tasks, including the third goal with the sale and future redevelopment of the University Mall/Ram’s Plaza.