Financing still biggest obstacle to economic development

While each of the three largest cities in Northern Colorado have different policies on economic development, officials agreed that the biggest hurdle they face now is financing available for the private sector.

The Northern Colorado chapter of Commercial Real Estate Women hosted a luncheon panel featuring economic development officials from each city: Betsey Hale with Loveland, Bruce Biggi with Greeley and Mike Freeman with Fort Collins. Each official described the various economic development tools at the cities’ disposal, ranging from an industrial water bank in Greeley to the economic development incentive fund in Loveland.

Hale described the city of Loveland’s two-year-old economic development policy, which lays out guidance for the city council to consider regarding the minimum standards for different incentives. Freeman said the city of Fort Collins has not adopted a formal economic development policy in order to deal with projects on a case-by-case basis. In addition to programs to attract new businesses, the trio detailed the efforts by the cities to support existing businesses.

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“It behooves cities to be doing it all of the time, not just when it’s tough,” Hale said of support programs. She referred to Loveland’s economic gardening program that mines extensive data and provides market research that would normally be a costly prospect.

Biggi added that the city of Greeley moved its Small Business Development Center into the University of Northern Colorado’s Monfort College of Business about four years ago. The move allows student groups to form semester-long partnerships with qualified local businesses to help them with planning, financials, and other essentials.

The biggest barrier to economic development right now, the panel agreed, was access to financing.

“If there’s not some block of public financing involved in these deals, they aren’t getting done,” Freeman said, pointing out that virtually all of the new development projects in Fort Collins during the past 24 months occurred in tax increment financing districts.

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