Development of an Economic Development Strategic Plan
The City is seeking proposals from qualified firms with extensive experience in developing economic development strategic plans. The City needs a strategy for addressing the economic development needs of the entire City to assure continued and enhanced economic health, tax base expansion, quality job creation and support for municipal services. The economic challenges facing the City and the economy of the region mandate the need to diversify and expand our economic base in order to assure the future prosperity of the City and its residents. Specifically, we need to address the pertinent challenges which the City faces including:
1.
Limited availability of land ‐ Few parcels of land are currently zoned and/or available for development, particularly in the IRT zoning, creating challenges in meeting prospect site needs in a largely built out community and creating cost issues for parcel assemblage.
2.
Little data on current economic base ‐ Much of the data available is old and needs to be researched to clearly identify industries in the City of Clearwater.
3.
Few incentives are available outside of the CRA and the Brownfields Zone ‐ The incentives available, mainly the state of Floridas Qualified Target Industry (QTI) Program and the Incumbent Worker Training (IWT) grants, are not targeting the full range of todays business needs.
