Partnerships, workforce development training and area projects were covered at a recent program.
The Prince William Chamber of Commerce held its Future of the Region at Old Hickory Golf Club in Woodbridge on Thursday.
City of Manassas Economic Development Director Patrick Small and Prince William County Department of Economic Development (PWCDED) Executive Director Christina Winn spoke at the event.
Local projects and employment were among the items Small discussed.
Winn talked about development, activities and themes in the region that will impact the county’s economic development.
Here is a video of the Future of the Region:
Below, is a transcription that was completed with 80 percent accuracy:
Lyle Dukes: We are celebrating and coming into this year, 10 years as a combined chamber, about 10 years ago, um, to, to, to keep chambers from East side of the County came together and merged. And so this is the 10th year and so this is what we call our diamond anniversary. So,
Dukes: well we were excited and looking forward to having some, some great things be a part of some events and some incredible initiatives that we’re going to lay out top in terms of helping the County get better. We always talk about having VA a good place to live, the play to work, but I really believe that we will have you all people in this room and others that are really bringing this County together in a special manner. So get ready. We have a host of you supervisors that are, that are a part of the County and then so many wonderful elected officials but also, yes, just being a part of the founded our business owners and whatnot. Um, just we’re, we’re excited about what lies ahead. This is a new not, this is a new year, a new decade, 2020 2020 is a universal symbol of clear vision. How many have 2020 individual
Speaker 2: [inaudible]
Dukes: really lay out to envision and really go forward and so we have some exciting things in the plan and you’re going to hear some of those today. Want to take the time to appreciate all our vision partners. Each has chosen an area of vision that makes up the chambers program of work because it’s an area to which that member is committed, so please pull your applause. We’re going to recognize our 2019 2020 vision partners, founding vision partner, dominion, energy advocacy, Transurban this row freedom bank education, Apple federal credit union,
Speaker 2: [inaudible]
Dukes: economic development partner is our ISIS CIC. Express mobility partners, help the community. It’s a terror Northern Virginia medical center and then faulted life insiders enterprise inc and also let’s give them a hand
Speaker 2: [inaudible]
Dukes: at this time. Also, we want to recognize all of our cornerstone partners. We are excited about this. These organizations, they chosen a department with the chamber in order in order to showcase their commitment to impacting the community and developing a reputation as your preferred partner in success as, yeah. That your whole, your applause. While we name these partners, these are our cornerstone partners. CC, Bartholomew Keller waves solution. Also sedate the city of Manassas did make incorporated George Mason university science and take out your campus, our life church
Speaker 2: [inaudible]
Dukes: data center PEO distilling Northern Virginia community college campus. Know that Northern Virginia electric cooperative, no fat health, UVA health systems, United bank and with bop wealth management.
Speaker 2: [inaudible].
Dukes: Now if we haven’t the Keystone partners, uh, could you stand? We have a list of so many. If you’re a Keystone partner, we’re gonna just stand and be recognized. Let’s get them
Speaker 2: [inaudible].
Dukes: We wish to thank also our gold sponsor Omni ride, which, uh, a witness represent my colleague Morello and uh, she’s going comment and have some remarks. Um, that’s just, let’s see, Polly
Speaker 3: [inaudible]. Okay. And, um, I’m Holly [inaudible] and when [inaudible] told you earlier this week that he couldn’t make a seniors event and he said, okay, this is your moment in the song. I’m not going to be talking about [inaudible] as the TBM program manager. Determinative options and that means portfolio largely. And um, the programs that I manage are the ride sharing program as well as the employer outreach program and that allows the residents of Prince William County to go out to our website, fill out a match request form, and then what we’ll do is send them back a detailed trans of itineraries and transit options for them, including Metro VRE or buses. We also provide them a detailed in this of all the communities that live near them, near them and have some more work out
Speaker 3: of it so that then you hopefully get together with one another SRO ride shoe. And then the employer outreach program is a program where I work very closely with Prince William County employers. Do you talk to them about those commute options so that they can be talking to their employees about, um, alternate commute schedules? Um, can be benefits and things of that nature. So I’ll take just a minute to say for those who’ve lived in the County, um, and you know that the hotlines are some of the first in the nation. Um, they were built in the 73 they were to before, back then in 18, nine in 19 nine, they turned into HOV three. And so the infrastructure on I 95 has been in place for a long time and is quite sure not as much on the 66, four door. And I’m going to spend just a little time talking about, um, what that infrastructure looks like.
Speaker 3: So on the Eastern side of the County, believe it or not, we have 6,000, 814 for you and lot spaces. Um, compare that to the Western side of the County where we have 2073 actually that was high as of November of last year, but in November of last year we had 51 spaces to the university community a lot. So now we’re just over 3000. Um, I forgot to say them on the West or the Eastern side of the County. Besides all the cathedral, what spaces? We also have about 10,000 people day sliding up and down the night before. So that’s response or maybe through Prince William County Stafford as well. Um, then what’s using that, that infrastructure. Um, we’ve got 88 active van pools on the Eastern side of the County and that translates or actually is ADH all of you in the County, 77 on the Eastern side of the County with the telling of 482 riders. Um, and on the Western side of the County we have 11 van pools with 77 Tilton wipers. So there’s a lot of room for growth on the sort of Western side of the County obviously. And you’re excited about continuing to manage the demand for alternate options on the Eastern side of the County, but are really, really excited about the growth on the Western side of the County. Coming not only to think infrastructure that positive community culture out there, eczema
Speaker 2: [inaudible]
Dukes: but following, and thank you for all you all do to get down the road. Um, I failed to introduce one of our VIP peas. Uh, it’s my wife
Speaker 2: [inaudible].
Dukes: We, we’re, we’re really excited about, um, what’s, what’s happening. And before I do this, let me, I’ll recognize our, um, media partners inside node one and what’s up Prince? They’re going to be taking pictures and tell me and taking, you know, taking notes so to speak. Um, and they gave me a note that said, if you would prefer not to be included in the video, please avoid that error. [inaudible] but we’d be all pain today that you are selling side cited things and concerning what our County, uh, and what this region is doing is doing. And I’m excited to be a part of it. And you all certainly are a part of it is now. My pleasure to introduce and they’re going to come out. Um, we had some chairs that were up here and one of the presenters, I won’t mention Patrick, the name he sent me a sentence, doesn’t want to sit up here, but that this fall is not, uh, um, I’m not gonna mention his name, but we, they’re gonna come and they’re gonna present.
Dukes: And then we’re gonna probably do this, some Q and A’s. We have some time so that you can get a better understanding of, of what’s going on. So at this particular time we have on my notes to see and make sure I follow for the presentation. All right. Um, we’re going to ask that, uh, you get ready for the presentation for, um, for the director of the city of Manassas. The thing is on my script that you are first. And then also we have Christina Wynn, who’s the executive director of economic development for principals. So at this time it comes Patrick, he’s going to talk about what they’re doing in their hair. [inaudible]
Small: so they literally had three chairs [inaudible] scared. So last year I did the column E brand or billion dollar walk up to the podium to kick a few people in the head, showed a bunch of slides from micron and chocolate white and piece out [inaudible] this year to be a little more challenging for us. But all in all, we had a fantastic year. So it’s a little squash through this, I don’t know. All right. So let we start with a paper political advertisement. Yeah, because they pay me, I’m going to introduce you to our team. Um, the Cole Smith and myself, there’s only two of us in the economic development department. Quite honestly, if you’ve never met us and only knows my reputation, he might take an apartment staffed with honey badgers, pound
Small: for pound. We’re probably the most atrocious department on the planet.
Speaker 2: [inaudible]
Small: well, one of the things I’m most proud of, um, for, uh, for the most important way for her as Nicole Smith for achieving her certified economic development designation last year, uh, our department is two certified professionals in it to achieve that designation, uh, three to five years worth of study. Uh, the comprehensive Dalal three part exam followed by moral presentation in front of the council of your peers in the cold war diligently and was awarded that designate
Speaker 2: [inaudible].
Small: So what does she and I do? Our full service Edo economic development organization would be business attraction and retention marketing. And we are also the city’s tourism agency. Uh, 80% of all the jobs in the community come from existing businesses. Uh, 100% of all existing jobs in the community can be attributed to existing businesses. For a second. Um, there are one thousand five hundred and fifty thousand employers in the city of Manassas paying an average weekly wage of North of $1,200 a week. That’s an average annual salary in the city average across the board, over $60,000 a year. And the city currently has 2.1% unemployment below friction. Our existing business visitation program for retention, uh, involves Nicole and I work in directly last year with 129 existing and prospective businesses. 23 of those existing businesses chose to invest in additional category employment. Um, 15 of them were prospective businesses that actually picks the Nassis in addition to that, um, cold as direct sales calls on existing businesses, their visitation and relationship though the calls. And she, this is personally with over a hundred businesses in the community years. We stay pretty busy and don’t have a slide for it today, but I want to do a shout out to Mason and small business development center and that was a new initiative for the city last year we established the SBDC to replace on the Ford business center, which closed its operations and it’s been a boring success for us over the past year and I was very pleased when the Kennedy recognize that and decided to follow suit.
Small: So major employers in the city, uh, Microm is pretty rapidly pulling away from, you know, down health, UVA health systems, uh, with over 1500 employees. But Nepal remains our second largest employer with 1300. Um, most of these employers and jobs last year. Um, most of them are planning to add additional in the upcoming year. And again, we spent most of our time working with folks like this. It wasn’t me, you probably can’t read this chart and the ones you can probably care
Speaker 2: [inaudible]
Small: but in the yellow and gold area in the lower right hand section down there, that is a percentage of the employment base in city, in the dances that is devoted to healthcare. Um, the sort of light, whitish color on the far left is a percentage of the city’s employment base that is in professional in technical services. So when we talk about our weekly wage, this 30% of our economy is key to that. So sending the NASA sends a 10 highest weekly wage in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the 16th highest per capita income before the highest overall wage for professional and technical services. And we remaining net importer of labor into the community. Uh, 18,000 homeless, 18,500
people drive into the city of the dances every day for work. There are now a lot of communities in this country that can claim that. So we’re truly blessed. Yeah, I had to put that in there.
Speaker 2: [inaudible]
Small: that’s the slide I showed like eight times last year. Clearly it’s a big deal and it remains to this day the single largest capital investment ever made by a company in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Uh, and yet some will ride that horse
Speaker 2: [inaudible]
Small: so there’s an aerial of the construction and micron, the two buildings in the foreground in the lower right. That is what’s under construction now and I would point out that it’s half of what my partners was committed to build in space. One a phase two was the manufacturing fab labs and does not also include the center for automotive excellence that they will be building in the city of [inaudible] as well. There’s another view that highlights the official burden. The city of [inaudible] Craig
Small: and micro is already paying dividends for us this year. Applied materials of the Melbourne, the city of [inaudible] picture company, world leader in production service and sale of the equipment the micron uses in their facility. They brought 20 jobs to us and they’ll be every other 10 in the near term. This was when the governor helped us out with all last year, another supplier on the micron, the governor through a few training dollars at the deal to over a hundred jobs, the average annual wage of $105,000 a year. And these are the types of jobs we talk about. We talk about career technical education. These are not the engineers that worked at high years.
Small: I would also add high purity systems is a union shop. They usually get in labor out of Washington DC. And just as a sort of temporary sales pitch, Commonwealth of Virginia does allow you unions in the state. However, ranking remains one of our single biggest attractions for new employers. So in Virginia we believe it’s the employer’s options to whether they want to unionize or number. And I hope all of you to join the chamber imposing any efforts to change that Richmond this year or anytime in the future. You can talk to Paulson, Nicole chairs between his policy committee.
Small: Where do you have an airport that has the busiest general aviation airport in the entire Commonwealth of Virginia and 30%. All state’s general aviation activity occurs there. It houses for us companies like war, flight science and why knows, uh, whiteness because they have their best 50 jobs since they came to us and they’re growing rapidly. We’re trying to break into that top 10 list at some point is airport operates in black, that is rare for municipal airport. City on actually contributes both lease rentals and property tax revenues to the city over and both paying the expenses it takes to operate the airport. Um, and in addition to the dividends it pays last year we did the groundbreaking of sheer total years and this fixed based operation there is under construction for those of you who’ve ever been on a long trip and then stopped it. Um, I want you to think about the most awesome. This truck stopped me ever pulled into my showers and the great food or fixed base operator was essentially a truck stop for airplanes. They get their gas, their pilots, lounges. Um, only when you think about nice seats or people who don’t, Jeff’s worth tens of millions.
Small: We have the trucks [inaudible] the lady you can breaks the city’s largest. Oh, you’re screwed. Chris. [inaudible] use them all the batteries, 40 acres, $150 million mixed use development under construction. Now with the public private partnership, we update you on that project as it goes along. Um, the true by Hill, it’s under construction now, should be opened in June and he can partners with other construction on that office. Retail building on the left that’s open April. It is available for leaks now standard Martin’s building luxury townhomes homes out there almost $300 and they average about $450,000 after the first hundred and 14 were built this school year. Um, we keep track of the number of school kids are coming out of the new developments, but also about four kids from this development. So if you hear people saying the residential development is going to sink public school, it’s not necessarily true because the kind of developments we’re building, the civic grasses like the messenger, a journalism major building visitor places down down on the live work units in case B marketplace. These developments are primarily young professionals that don’t have children who are moving into our community for some of those fantastic jobs.
Small: We do have a problem in the city of an assets that we have very little to sell, which is why businesses are so important for us. So for those of you is those that you could get on market reports, get arguments, letters, uh, you’ve probably got one downtown today, the number for downtown or even worse, we have a sub 4% vacancy in our office market. We have so 4% they can see in our retail market and we have sub 2.5% they can see in our industrial market. Um, so new construction is important to us. We a lot of places to do that, which is why we attract developments like the way you can be branch loaded become premium commodity for companies on the marketing side. We continue to invest in extending our brand. Hopefully you’re all familiar with it and we’ll put it on everything.
Small: It’s in the upper right corner to the bottom of every single slide. Every single thing we do. It’s been very well received and if you are not familiar with what’s going on in the city, probably because you’re not paying attention. Nicole runs their social media programs. We are one of the most followed localities in Northern Virginia. Our a newsletter goes out every two weeks plus Facebook, Twitter, presence, Instagram as well last year because workforce development and employment is an issue for us. We’ve launched a new website called moved to the Nassis. This website aggregates information on what doesn’t. It’s kind of like the city’s web page. We find out about the complement in parks and rec and who’s on the city council. This is where prospective residents go to find information on neighborhoods, churches, schools, when the public or private or even homeschooling, things to do in region.
Small: So if your HR department is not using this with prospective employees, you really should lead. And if you’re a realtor and you’re not late to this site, the evolution was festivals and events in the city of Manassas. Tourism is the other thing that we do control. [inaudible] we consider the first day for economic development. If you come to our downtown, participate in our events, you’re going to fall in love with our city and you’re going to want to have your business here. You’re going to want to move here. We did over 450,000 visitors in the city, in the masses last year. A lot of holes to print, 500,000 this year, four point $4 million in meals, tax revenues of 14% since 2014. Um, 9 million sales tax of 12% since 2014. Um, actually started to document a form that I may have ended up, it was hard math guy, but I started in 2014 so I’ll let you do the math.
Speaker 2: [inaudible]
Small: all right. So what’s my legacy for the city? I’m an answer. What can I leave behind when I retire or move on or get hit by a truck or somebody
Speaker 2: [inaudible]
Small: so that is not my legacy.
Speaker 2: [inaudible]
Small: because my leg would say, how many of you come to downtown and participate in one of our special events where you can get a drink, walk out of the nest or walk up and down your streets, walking into retailers and really enjoy yourselves. [inaudible] and I didn’t give a shout out too long. We’re very, he’s our port director. He burns it. He does a fantastic job turning this broken Mike over to proceed.
Speaker 2: [inaudible] [inaudible]
Winn: can you think I to tell you probably that act is going to be hard because I am not as funny as Patrick’s. Um, my colleague, he had, um, informed me that I actually put the wrong date on this presentation. I thought maybe that you guys would believe that. I actually developed it last year knowing that I would be right here.
Speaker 2: [inaudible]
Winn: uh, I took a little bit of a different approach then Patrick Day. And so when I saw the title of of this event, future of the region, I thought to myself, okay, what is happening in the region? What activities, what developments, what themes are actually happening all over the DMV and specifically Northern Virginia that is going to affect the way Prince William does an economic development. And this is really important because obviously as you all know, you know, we have a lot of new board members in this year. Our new board is going be embarking on developing our strategic plan and revolt. Robust economy is an important element of that. And so a lot of these things that I’m going to talk about tonight, you know, my hopes is that these things will actually be woven through that strategic plan so that we can be thinking about that as we’re doing planning and economic development and thinking about transportation and etc.
Winn: So, Oh, I keep thinking, I forget. I have the click. Okay. So the first one is collaboration’s NDAs or economic development organizations collaborating and developing partnerships. That’s not new. I mean we have partnerships with George Mason as VDC.
You, we’ve always have done that to really do important work and small business workforce development so forth. But what is new is the fact that, um, especially in Northern Virginia is that we’re actually reaching across to our neighbors and we’re partnering to really leverage resources, market together, share assets to really amplify our voices to reach bigger audiences. And this is new. Go Virginia was probably the go Virginia credits program was probably the first piece that really solidified this because that grant was a success duly apart to the fact that Arlington, Alexandria had partnered together. Now Arlington and Alexandria have really, um, David partnering home before go Virginia on a marketing efforts.
Winn: But when it came to actually working together to recruit a prospect that was really different. And so they demonstrated that, okay, it can be done and we can work together. And so when I think about, okay, I’m in Prince William County, where are my neighbors? What am I going to do? I want to work together with the city of Manassas, Manassas park to amplify our message. We are one community because the businesses don’t see borders. They see marketplaces. And so how can we work together and strategically partner on shared assets and shared issues to really amplify our messages? I’m talking to my friends down in Fredericksburg and Stafford County, you know, uh, Holly over there talked about 10,000 slugs a day coming up the 95 corridor. Well, Frederick, Fredericksburg and Stafford County is in the same boat as us. All that traffic is passing through our communities to go work in Fairfax or downtown. Can you just stop that? So how can Prince William County, Stafford and Fredericksburg actually work together to rebrand the 95 corridor route one to something like the Potomac defense quarter and now we start creating jobs and we put Holly out of work. Sorry.
Speaker 2: [inaudible]
Winn: those are the types of things that we’re more talking about collaboration. So partnerships, how are we taking that to the next level? And that’s when we’re looking at our strategic plan, are the economic development work plan, who are partners, where can we actually leverage resources, connectivity. Obviously connectivity is always been important and this is both transportation and fiber. And what’s happening is you think about this, the Dov region is the second largest. Um, um, sorry, I lost my where it’s second largest, um, workforce that for STEM occupations. So computer sciences, engineers, AI, data analytics, data scientists, et cetera, second largest in the nation for having those STEM occupations. So what does that mean? That means that those workers are working in companies in the DMV. Then the majority of those are actually in Northern Virginia developing the newest technologies and the new advancements in not only transportation, but defense it and related things.
Winn: Those, um, and then you add the fact that Northern Virginia has the largest, um, or the highest concentration of federal research agencies. So think about NSF, national science foundation, DARPA, office of Naval research, et cetera. All of those organizations are funding innovation. So where Silicon Valley is funded by venture capitalists, the entrepreneurs and the innovation that happens in this area is funded by these federal research agencies. And so we are really working in our employers are cutting edge working on these new technologies. And so how does high G get rolled out? How does that all happen? IOT, internet of things. You, somebody just told me the other day down
how these technologies are actually transforming and being into our lives on a daily basis. That the ring doorbell that they just reported, that that is where it was, um, you know, uh, meant to be, you know, uh, protection device is passionately now catching criminals.
Winn: I mean, thinking about how this technology is changing the way we live. We live in experience our daily lives and how we’re doing. And so when you think about transportation, you know, our chair chair revealer at the opening statement of her first board meeting talked about how we need to bring, you know, the BRD out to gains know and bring Metro to lick bridge. And you know, why that’s important is that we have to be connected within this region. You know, the perception is is that Prince William was so far out there, it’s, Oh, it’s out there. But if we start now connecting within the region using transportation and technology, we are going to be considered and being able to attract more jobs and more employment to our area.
Winn: The other piece is micro transit. You know when you think about being able to attract workforce, a lot of the DMV region was really a leader in the Capitol, bike, sheriffs, scooters and so forth. You and that technology associated with the electric bikes and whatever they’re doing, I don’t know, I’m not technologist, but whatever they’re doing to really advance that, to make that mobility easier to connect nodes. Well how are we, no, I’m embracing that and bringing it in. Thinking about that in our future developments and planning for that. And the last piece would be smart cities. You know the whole DMV area hat is very progressive in terms of having smart cities policies. Thinking about where wifi is, where, how we are connecting the public life, health safety systems. Those are pieces that we need to think about. And when we start becoming an acting as a technology player, we are going to be able to attract more tech employers and you can really stop becoming a pup bedroom.
Winn: Workforce development training. Patrick talked about this. So the workforce, you know what people say when you talk about workforce, everybody kind of has a different kind of idea in their lined for a long time. Most of the programs around workforce has been in education and training. And so the public schools are doing an amazing job with career technical education, our universities and um, the skill source. We have all of these amazing resources that are working on training more workers, developing them, um, creating sponsor internship and entrepreneurship or apprenticeship programs. And so how are, um, and using that to really develop our workforce, this really, this issue became even more, um, hyper-focused when Amazon and micron really decided to invest in this area. Every, all lot of lawyers were very worried about Amazon creating 25,000 jobs. You know, I just said we were the second largest and these STEM-related second largest market for these STEM-related occupations.
Winn: But now Amazon is going to come and take all the jobs, right? That’s what everybody’s thinking. So there is a lot of emphasis and a lot of focus at the state level, the local level, all of our university partnerships, um, and so forth to really think about how are we developing the workforce of tomorrow? How are we cranking out more, uh, university students and graduates in these STEM-related programs? The Virginia economic development partnership is making a lot of strides in creating, um, a tech talent pipeline with their investment in the university system. They anticipate that through this investment that they’re making over a 20 year period, they’re going to increase the number of computer science graduates by 25,000 people, um, which has almost doubled what they are doing right now. And so that is super important as we’re thinking about how our, if, if we are perceived as having a future labor force, a shortage or that it’s hard to get workers, it’s going to be hard for us to attract jobs. And so there’s a lot of efforts and going into this. The other piece is talent recruitment.
Winn: Well if you listened to the fuller Institute and the reports that they put out, art, the DMV area has always lost a lot of, um, graduates that grew up here. A lot of Prince William students that went to high school here go to college and they never came back home because they didn’t think they had a job. And the only reason why I’m reaching bros is because we have this international, um, in migration of, of people coming in. And so the NOAA economic development Alliance, how many people know about what that is? Nope. Okay. Alright. Good job. So when I talked about collaboration and partnerships, one of the most amazing things that happened to justice fall was that the 10 jurisdictions in Northern Virginia got together the economic development directors and said, we are going to create an Alliance so that we can market together and um, work together to, uh, amplify the Northern Virginia message.
Winn: And because, because of the Amazon, when they were North of Northern Virginia actually got recognized separately from the DMV. Always in the past. Anytime that people would talk about Northern Virginia, they always love it in with DC. They wouldn’t say Metro DC area. And so when that shortlist came out with Amazon, it didn’t say metropolitan DC, it’s a district cook clock and then it said Northern Virginia. And so what we got together as um, an a as partners to say we’re going to work together. One of the things that we’re going to, we’ll focus on is talent recruitment is how are we helping really bring that the, the workforce in the talented workforce in to supply our work, our employers and to make sure that pipeline doesn’t dry up. And Fairfax County is one of the leaders in that area. They have a large budget and they are already investing in trying to develop programs and opportunities to start to market in our area.
Winn: You know, I got ’em handed off to Patrick and Nicole, you have their um, moved to Manassas website. I did stumble on that very early on. It’s a fantastic website because think about it, if I’m looking for a job and I’m from this area, I want to know, you know, what is there to do, how are the schools, what is, what is the opportunities here? And so having those resources available and marketing to be able to attract that workforce is really important. The workforce incentives piece is also, there’s always been some kind of grant training, job training program, but again, the Virginia economic development partnership recognizes that workforce is such an issue that they are, um, they’ve taken a big step this year. They are, they plan to create a workforce program and who have over 50 employees working in workforce related, um, program. And they, I have created a new, uh, it’s called a tap program, the talent accelerator program.
Winn: And what this is, is instead of an employer that’s coming into the area, they either can opt to have a grant and then go do workforce recruitment on their own. Or they actually get this customized service from the state, from the Virginia economic development partnership to work with. Um, then the staff to develop, recruit and attract. They’re more enforced for their jobs. And so it is modeled after some of the best workforce programs in the nation and our state, Virginia will have that. That means that when we’re attracting employers to the city of Manassas and um, principally Yolo County, we’re going to have access to be able to market and that’s going to be extremely instrumental placemaking.
Winn: So placemaking obviously we have it is, um, it’s been, uh, you know, it has been continuing to evolve. I would say as the, um, I think the regular kind of, um, residents you placemaking, it was always been kind of like urban centers and city centers, you know, think about like, uh, those experiences and reskin Thomas center was one of the very first communities that started to try to create this sense of place. And it’s taken over 20 years. Her rests into view what it is today. But what’s, what we’re thinking about now is how are we creating those nodes of activities, those pop up experiences. People don’t shop at stores the way they used to because we can buy what like 90% of what we need on a daily basis online. So when we’re going out, we want to have experiences, we want to connect, we want to engage with people.
Winn: And so our city centers are our nodes of activity, have to be able to give people this, this opportunity to experience things and to bring together the sociability. And so we need to think about like what Prince William is doing with our small area plans in developing these nodes of activity. This is going to play a big part because if we’re going to be able to attract the workforce and we’re gonna be able to attract the little, um, the tail it, people want to know where are they eating and shopping at lunchtime or after work. And they’re gonna go get a drink and they don’t want to have to go miles and miles away and they don’t want to get in their car. They want it accessible. So having amenities available is going to be super important. Pop up retail being a or a pop up libraries, pop up art spaces.
Winn: Those are great tools to help us activate maybe spaces that are vacant or have been underutilized for a period of time and try, try to bring new life into a neighborhood or, or a no. And so when we think about another trend and things that need to be, um, really implementing and doing are our strategies. Placemaking is huge because people, um, because places matter to people in economies. It’s not about, um, it’s not about where the lowest prices are, the lowest landings. It’s about the place which brings me to the revitalization of the, the I 95 route one corridor. We are focused. When I think about how these, uh, placemaking, um, principles are actually going to affect how we start to strategize and encourage investment. This plays a big part just right before the end of the year, the North, um, Woodbridge area, small area plan was adopted and approved.
Winn: That small area plan actually calls or mixed use vertical development in a walkable community that’s going to have that sense of place. Do you know, ever since that plan has been approved, we have gotten so many, um, interested property owners and investors that are now looking to this area. And these are real so that it’s too early for me to talk about, but it’s, but it’s, it happens and the County has made some investment in terms of infrastructure and, um, widening route one and clearing utilities to help create that sense of place, the, um, the market. And so, you know, like I, I get a lot of people saying like, well, we never really focused on the Eastern side of the County before and, you know, why are we doing this now? Or you should have been doing this
before. Well, what I tell you, you’ll find years ago, I don’t even think that we could have put, um, got me level of interest in this area.
Winn: Like we are a nap. And that reason is, is that you have these higher priced markets in Restin, Tyson’s, DC, Arlington, Alexandria. And so now those government contractors, those it companies, those maybe second tier, uh, in my class with companies that may have gone to those places, you know, initially they’re being out price and they can’t afford to actually be there. So if they don’t need to have direct access to the Capitol or DC or the pedagogue, this is a great opportunity. And so I feel like when we’re thinking about the future of 20, 20 and beyond, I in 85, route one corridor is where it’s at.
Speaker 2: [inaudible]
Winn: existing business engagement. So I’ve been a big proponent for, um, my economic development career when, when I think about an existing businesses, I think about what types of value added services that we can offer to help, um, companies generate more revenue and um, create new law, new partnerships that hopefully create a new lines of business. And with bottom line that I want you to expand and grow in my County. And so we develop our programs and services around us in mind. How can we lift up our companies and give them more opportunities? The interesting thing is about existing business engagement is because the workforce today and the one tomorrow is so socially conscious. When they are looking for jobs, they go to an employer’s website and they want to see what is that employer doing in the community? Do they have volunteer programs? Are they giving back because they want or do they recycle?
Winn: Like right? What kind of policies do they have? And they want to be a part of companies that embrace those same values that, that they do. And so when we think about where we’re going in the future, part of our engagement is going to be, Oh, ground getting the, uh, existing business community involved in the community. How are we helping give opportunities to that, to their workforce to get involved and give back? And we believe that that is going to create more opportunities, more partnerships, and um, and really help them continue. It’ll like, it’ll dig them in the roots where they’re so connected into our community and they’ll never want to leave. Um, and it’ll create more opportunities for them to connect and generate more revenue. The last piece is entrepreneurship. If you’ve heard me speak before, I told you, that’s what I have told you, that um, one of the interesting Coke towels from Amazon relocating to Northern Virginia is that they have a stat that says, um, three out of every 10 employees that worked for Amazon goes off and starts their own business.
Winn: And so when you think about what small business and entrepreneurship is, and, and we have Mike run in these other major employers in the area and you have technology, we need to be ready to really build capacity with our small businesses and help them not only start and launch a business, but then scale and continue to grow. And whatever their exit strategy is, whether it’s they want to leave, they want to continue to grow and leave a legacy for their kids or they want to exponentially grow and get bought out. We need to support and be able to have the tools ready so that we can grow our home. And because I think there’s unreal lot more opportunities that is, um, Debbie presented for more entrepreneurship and more companies to, to grow with small business and entrepreneurship. It takes a village and it takes many different partners.
Winn: And you know, I’m going to echo, uh, George Mason given her, I go Patrick and give a shout out to our friends at George Mason. And as Patrick says, we did follow suit. We just like to copy him, um, every time. Um, um, uh, reach out and we still, we have a Mason small business development center in order to looking at, you know, when you think about the themes and all connects back because we’re looking at how do we partner with better programs? How do we, how do you partner with AA RFP to engage retired professionals to start new businesses? How are we engaging with the Latin, um, Latino, uh, economic development chamber and a corporation to make sure that we have Spanish speaking counselors to really help our minority and women owned businesses? You. So how are we creating those partnerships? And it all circles back. So all of those things all integrate it in order for us to do economic development. And then last facility with our snapshot, I did not do any, like, here’s what our accomplishments are. So when I think about the future of 20, 20, you know, our demographics are continuing to change. You know, I’m hoping that with our ability to con, um, to attract more workforce, that talented workforce and create more jobs here in Prince William, that our demographics will even get better and, um, more attractive to, uh, attract more companies. Thank you.
Speaker 2: [inaudible].
