Advancing Grundy plan to diversify local economy unveiled

The Advancing Grundy plan was put together but the Grundy Resiliency Project and TIP Strategies were unveiled at a luncheon Wednesday afternoon, discussing not what can be done, but what is being done to make Grundy County a better place to live for everyone.

Nancy Norton, president and CEO of the Grundy Economic Development Commission, said the Grundy Resiliency Project started when there were concerns that the Dresden Generating Station would be closing down. This caused concerns throughout Grundy County, but especially in Coal City.

“Coal City Fire Protection District, 42% of our tax levy is revenue from the Dresden agreement,” said Dean Marketti, treasurer of the Coal City Fire Protection District. “Dresdent’s EAV, which calculates our total rate setting, is 54% of our total number.”

Coal City Unit 1 School District is in a similar situation as Dresden Generating Station pays more than half the district’s bills, according to a Jan. 18 story from the Morris Herald-News.

Norton said the threats of Dresden closing were in the not-too-distant past and luckily, those days are behind the county. It did, however, give people around the county the idea to create a plan to put in place in case Dresden does close in the future.

“It was an opportunity for us to step back and say, ‘How prepared are we?’” Norton said. “As a result, the (Grundy County Chamber of Commerce) and the GEDC, we applied for and received a grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration, and the grant gave us money to look at how we were doing as a community.”

Jeff Marcell and Mishka Parkins from TIP Strategies presented the Grundy County Economic Diversification and Resiliency Plan at the luncheon. Marcell said the plan is the result of the last 10 months of evaluating the local economy, looking at opportunities, shortcomings and strategies to move the community forward.

The plan lists guiding principles and areas of opportunity that it says will help move the local economy forward around Dresden, rather than having the generating station be the sole driver. These categories are resilience, collaboration, innovation, sustainability, and equitable growth.

“These guiding principles, we have five of them here but essentially, they helped us think through the strategies as we started to create them,” Parkins said. “But two, we wanted to provide that to the community as a reference point. This five-year timeline, think about these principles as a way to assess opportunities that may arise, figure out if they align with what the community wants and how it sees itself moving forward.”

The areas of opportunity are target sector growth, local business vitality, talent development and attraction, and placemaking. Target sector growth, according to the plan, means seeking out emerging industries such as energy-intensive businesses and advanced manufacturing, along with sectors that have revitalization potentials like power, chemical manufacturing, and transportation and logistics.

The plan includes 10 recommendations for the county:

• Recruit industry and businesses within its targets,

• Support small businesses and entrepreneurship,

• Update zoning and land use plans,

• Make investments based on location,

• Work on creating attainable,

• Affordable housing,

• Work with Joliet Junior College on its campus expansion, • work with the Morris Airport on its development and further expansion,

• Aid Morris Hospital in being more visible in the community,

• Create childcare partnerships

• Expand broadband internet.

“We did nine round table sessions on a whole host of different topics,” Marcell said. “We did a whole series of one-on-one interviews, we did three separate town halls as part of this and then we did two different surveys, one for the business community and another for residents.”

Parkins said the hot topics included the impact of the hospital, childcare, and real estate availability.

Housing challenges

Panelists then took questions from Christina Van Yperen, president of the Grundy County Chamber of Commerce. The panelists included Marketti, Morris Hospital CEO Tom Dohm, ComEd’s John McCann, JJC President Clyne Namuo, and Three Rivers Association of Realtors Executive Amanda Burns.

Each panelist explained why their participation in the plan was important.

Dohm said Morris Hospital’s mission is to improve the health of area residents through partnerships like the one it has with the county and the Morris Community YMCA.

“One of our biggest challenges and one of the biggest areas that will cause failure of a community hospital is the inability to attract, retain and recruit high-quality staff,” Dohm said.

Dohm said Morris and Grundy County must be a place where these workers want to live.

It’s also, as Burns pointed out, critical that the people who work in Grundy County live in Grundy County so their money stays there when it’s spent.

“Where do they live?” Burns said. “Where do they stay? Are they staying in our communities? Are they using those wonderful paychecks that they’ve received? Or are they taking them back to other communities where they’re living?”

Burns said the “missing middle” needs to be addressed in Grundy County through building more multi-family and single-family homes.

Namuo said JJC plans to expand to Morris and create programming that matches the needs of the community.

McCann said from ComEd’s perspective, it’s there to be part of the community and create sustainable, high-wage jobs. That means McCann said, providing the basic infrastructure for a county that has great sites that are ready for development thanks to infrastructure like the high voltage power that travels down Brisbin Road.

Information about the Advancing Grundy Plan is available at resilientgrundy.com/advancing-grundy-plan.