City/County merge economic development

After 30 years, the St. Louis County Economic Council no longer exists. Now in its place is a new agency that represents business development for both St. Louis County and city. This marks a new era of collaboration for two municipalities, said Denny Coleman, CEO of the new St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, in an interview with the St. Louis American

Coleman explains what the merger of the city and county economic development agencies means for the region.

The American: What exactly has happened since the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership was established on August 1? I know 10 staff members from the city’s St. Louis Development Corporation (SLDC) were moving into your Clayton office.

Denny Coleman: We are about six weeks into the new partnership. We have really successfully integrated the staffs. We’ve had a number of formal and informal get-togethers. We’ve also taken the time to have both the former SLDC staff to learn about major county projects and initiatives, including meeting with staffs of county municipal government. At the same time, the former county staffers are meeting with various aldermen in the city as well. We are doing an aggressive job of making sure that both of the former staffs know each other’s turfs because we want to act as one staff.

The American: What functions have you merged so far?

Coleman: Most of the staff members that came over from the SLDC were in the business development arena. They were working on retention and expansion efforts and will continue to do so in the new partnership. There were some of the positions that were working on our small business finance arena, and they will continue to do that.

The American: What are some other possibilities for the future?

Coleman: This was all that was contemplated in this move. I know that there are other conversations of combining the city and the county workforce areas. If the economy doesn’t respect municipal boundaries, neither does workforce. People live in one jurisdiction and work in another all over the metropolitan area. It makes good sense that the county and city workforce are discussing ways to work closer together.

The American: Were any jobs lost during the merger?

Coleman: Rodney Crim (president of the partnership and former executive director of the SLDC) and I decided that it didn’t make sense to incorporate all of the real-estate functions into the new partnership from the city. There is still a substantial St. Louis Development Corporation that will continue to handle all the real-estate functions in the city. From the County Council perspective, most of the staff members that were moving into the partnership were from the economic council, so it made it sense to construct the new partnership around the backbone of that economic council. There is no more St. Louis County Economic Council. All of those functions and staff have been brought into the partnership. There is still a SLDC, with 40-plus employees.

The American: What does the partnership need from policymakers to push forward economic development?

Coleman: The two most significant policy makers, County Executive Charlie Dooley and Mayor Francis Slay, have weighed in the most significant way and that was by starting us off with this new partnership. Now we can speak with one voice, from an economic development standpoint, for both the city and the county. That’s extremely important.

I think as we go into legislative activities, we clearly need some additional assistance for startup businesses, our entrepreneurs. The regional entrepreneurship plan laid out a goal of $100 million for what we need in capital, for investment and support for an entrepreneur support organization. That will mostly be private funds, but I think there is a place at the table for some public investment.

When we did our regional entrepreneurship initiative, one of the top 10 priorities that was spelled out clearly is the need for greater inclusion across the whole spectrum of entrepreneur development. We had some 40 different organizations participate and across the board, there was common belief that we just aren’t doing enough for minority recruitment into that entrepreneur space.

One of the top10 priorities was to be a more inclusive in terms getting more minority entrepreneurs into the high-tech, bio sciences and other top-growing fields we have here.