ALLEN THAYER athayer@postregister.com
Economic development requires people and communities work together.
Teresa McKnight, CEO of Regional Economic Development for Eastern Idaho, stressed that point as the keynote speaker and one of four panelists at Thursday’s second annual Eastern Idaho Outlook event in the Mountain America Center in Idaho Falls.
REDI is a private, nonprofit economic development organization dedicated to driving job growth, business expansion and diversification across Eastern Idaho. It covers 16 counties and 31 cities.
Joining McKnight as panelists were Todd Mitchell, strategic development partner at Silver Star Communications, Andrew Wolford, VP of Idaho operations for Big-D Construction, and Don Zebe, brokerage services and partner at Colliers, a commercial real estate firm based in Boise with a branch office in Idaho Falls. Jim Shipman, managing owner of Colliers, served as moderator.
McKnight stressed all parties must be in alignment to attract and keep new companies here to the more than 100 people in attendance.
According to McKnight, one of the most important aspects of attracting new business development is how quickly and reliably a place can align land, labor, logistics and leadership behind investment projects.
“We have two site visits coming up in the next 30 days from companies in the East Coast,” McKnight said. “We’ll be spending several days with them to showcase our region and hopefully land them here. They are looking for integrated solutions.”
Energy infrastructure is huge for them, she said.
“They come in and they might take 50 acres, but their long-term plan is that over multiple years they want to double that,” McKnight said.
Adjacent land must be available for future use as well as an available workforce that can accommodate expansion.
“It’s not just problem solutions for today,” McKnight said. “It’s looking into the future too. So we have a lot of homework to do.”
McKnight imparted advice for any city and county officials present.
“If you are a mayor or a city council member, I beg you to look at the bottlenecks within your system,” McKnight said. “As a mayor walk through the front door of your City Hall and meet with every single department head you have within your city as if you are a new business. Figure out where there are some problems.
“And start working on them, because you’ve got one opportunity with these companies and if you blow it, that’s it,” McKnight said. “So we want to make sure we’re doing everything that we can to reduce these bottlenecks.”
Responding quickly to questions from AI data centers or any other potential new business is even more important.
“It used to be you had 30 days to respond to an RFI or request for information from a potential company,” McKnight said. “Then you had 20 days. Then you had 15 days. We have received an RFI when you have 24 hours, which is unbelievable, and the amount of data that they want you to respond to is unbelievable as well.
“The places that are ready will be the big winners for economic development,” McKnight said.
Alignment is the goal.
“That’s all of us working together,” McKnight said, citing cities and county leaders, regional agencies, utilities and economic development organizations.
“Work together with urgency and companies notice,” McKnight said. “The reward of that collaboration results in a win.”
McKnight offered her thoughts on how the region is doing economically.
“Our region is doing well,” McKnight said. “We are growing. But we need to make sure that the growth is heading in the right direction, and that we are making sure that all of the sectors that are building this region are growing at a good pace as well.”
One sector cannot receive more attention than another.
“They all need to be watched and looked upon and nurtured,” McKnight said.
“Eastern Idaho is a very unique area,” McKnight said. “When I came up about six and a half years ago, I noticed that there were some silos that were in various communities of our region, and that is how they’ve operated for decades.
“We’ve been really trying to emphasize that in order for us to have more successful wins and more opportunities, we’ve all got to pull our resources and work together,” McKnight said. “So we’re just telling leaders please work together. Please work with your surrounding communities that are adjacent to your communities. Be a good team player, because it’s for the good of the region when companies come in.”
For example, McKnight said an incoming company might put a pin in Idaho Falls and draw a circle around it representing a 40-mile radius from where their workforce and supply chain must be found.
“All of these critical pieces that are going to feed this company are coming from a 40-mile radius,” McKnight said. “It might encompass multiple communities. If they’re not all working together, who pays the price?”
Other states start recruiting the company.
“They’re saying nobody works together here,” McKnight said. “We lose it. That hurts our region, because people would not work together.”
Shipman also discussed the relationship between developers and cities.
“Anytime you have a rapidly growing city you’re going to have tension,” Shipman said.
He cited Micron undergoing a massive $50 billion expansion at its Southeast Boise campus. The development features 15 new buildings, including a new office building and two fabrication plants. The first fab plant is expected to be complete and begin production by 2027.
In response to that sudden in the Boise metropolitan area, the mayor of Caldwell, a Boise suburb, ran on an antigrowth platform and backed a moratorium.
“It alarmed a lot of us,” Shipman said, “because that’s where at least in the Treasure Valley most of the affordable housing is now being built. When you have rapid growth and you have that pressure, you’re going to have cities pushing back a bit. That’s just the nature of the ebb and flow of development.”
Several points were made by other panelists.
“Labor is going to be big driver of cost and projects moving forward over the course of the next decade,” Wolford said.
That’s also a point made by Zebe when discussing developers of multifamily housing.
“They have to bring in the labor,” Zebe said, “because we don’t have the labor. We’re experiencing a housing shortage in Pocatello. The struggle is cost.”
Mitchell also pointed to another change in construction due to the world economy.
“Manufacturers are not holding their quotes for 30 days,” Mitchell said, referring to the real estate construction and telecom construction materials.
All the panelists agreed on one point.
“AI is not going away,” Zebe said. “We’re going to have to utilize it better.”