The Hickenlooper administration’s “bottom-up” economic-development initiative is nearing completion as the 14 regional plans are being filed this week with the state Office of Economic Development and International Trade.
An executive order by Gov. John Hickenlooper in January set in motion the process under which Colorado’s 64 counties had to identify business-development priorities that were grouped into 14 plans.
“Those plans will be used to create a state plan,” said Matt Cheroutes, a spokesman for the office.
The plans — based on comments from county officials during the process — will have regional differences, some common themes and potentially some conflicts.
The joint Weld County-Larimer County plan, for example, lists bringing the National Western Stock Show from Denver to Weld County as a possible initiative.
“The stock show has said it is looking to move,” said Weld County Commissioner Sean Conway. “If Weld County can put together a proposal that gains their attention, why shouldn’t we?”
The stock show is looking at space near Denver International Airport that likely would be developed in conjunction with a hotel and conference center on adjacent land in Aurora.
There are, however, likely to be many similarities among the plans, Conway said. Common concerns include revising tax policies, cutting red tape and regulations and the need for more water storage.
“Addressing these issues will help everyone,” Conway said.
County officials across the state have also emphasized some very local concerns in meetings with Hickenlooper.
For example, officials in Mesa County raised the idea of doing more to promote the region’s hunting, fishing and national parks. Prowers County officials wanted to make sure economic enterprise zones are preserved.
“The risk you run in doing planning this way is you are going to end up with a grab bag of ideas rather than a plan,” said Bob McGowan, a professor of management at the University of Denver’s Daniels School of Business.
“The problem is you also start pitting one area against another,” said McGowan, who has worked on economic-development plans in Colorado and Pennsylvania.
Weld County held seven public meetings to gather suggestions for its proposal. Larimer County conducted a similar exercise.
The Weld-Larimer joint plan identifies goals, strategies and actions and results.
Among the strategies is to brand the area as NoCo, and just as Denver’s Lower Downtown area, known as LoDo, was anchored by Coors Field, the goal would be to get a similar anchor, Conway said.
The stock show or a new NASCAR racetrack could serve that purpose, Conway said.
One action the two counties agreed upon was to seek state support for the major water-storage projects in the area — the Northern Integrated Supply Project and the Halligan and Seaman reservoirs.
“We wanted to look for things that could be part of a comprehensive state plan,” said Larimer County Commissioner Lew Gaiter.
A goal of the Weld-Larimer plan is 5,000 new jobs in the next five years and a 20 percent increase in the number of businesses.
“There may be competition among regions, but when one wins, we all win because the state’s economy grows” Conway said.
Mark Jaffe: 303-954-1912 or mjaffe@denverpost.com
