Connecticut COVID-19 Conference Call with Governor Lamont & CT DECD by The Connecticut Economic Resource Center

CERC Town Profiles™ are a resource for many - entrepreneurs looking to determine markets and how to grow their business, real estate professionals who need to portray a region, municipalities conducting strategic planning and updates to plans of conservation and development, economic development professionals preparing context for grant and other funding requests, and the general public who are interested in learning more about their current or potential hometown.

Listen as Michelle Riordan-Nold, Executive Director of the Connecticut Data Collaborative, chats with Alissa DeJonge, CERC’s Vice President of Research, about the mission and services of the CT Data Collaborative and the newly updated Town Profiles.

In partnership with CERC, the CT Data Collaborative makes the data that lives within the Town Profiles accessible to the general public. Shared in two different formats, the first, a two-page PDF that includes demographic, economic, fiscal, and education data for each of our 169 municipalities. The 54 data sets within the Town Profiles can also be accessed via an interactive database housed on ctdata.org, where the data can be seen across municipalities and over a specific time period.

Town Profiles are a valuable resource for viewing all of this data in a single place, and useful for comparing town data over time, or to compare towns relative to one another, and the state as a whole.

http://profiles.ctdata.org/

After a period of steady growth, we’re starting to see signs of a slow down as the economy begins to return to a more baseline level of growth. Factors such as the diminishing effects of the temporary boost from the 2017 tax changes, as well as slowing in the manufacturing sector due to prolonged uncertainty with trade and tariffs, have a different economic outlook going into 2020.

Fresh from a presentation at the 2019 Connecticut Conference of Municipalities Annual Convention, Courtney Hendricson, CERC’s Vice President of Municipal Services, and Rachel Gretencord, CERC’s Financial and Research Analyst, come together to recap an outlook of the Connecticut economy and how municipalities can leverage this information to help local businesses in their communities.

Rachel shares information on the trends we’re seeing in the major industries in the state - including manufacturing, healthcare, education and social services, the IT sector, as well as professional and business services - and discusses how every industry is being affected by the aging workforce, and the challenges companies are facing to train new workers.

So, on a local level, what do we do with this information? Courtney shares ideas on how municipal leaders can leverage these trends to build vitality in downtowns through experiential retail, provide resources for emerging businesses, and partner with educational resources to develop the next wave of skilled workforce with the new technologies… all with a focus on the fundamentals of best practices in economic development, without losing the critical character of our communities.

Popular in California and the Pacific Northwest where we see high population growth and prohibitive real estate prices, the fastest adopters of the tiny house movement are millennials, who are trying to establish their own space, and baby boomers / early empty-nesters that are looking to downsize. Here in Connecticut, tiny homes are more of a curiosity or novelty, and come with complications, in part due to municipal zoning regulations.

Listen as Courtney Hendricson, Vice President of Municipal Services at CERC welcomes John Guszkowski, Lead Planner and Community Developer with CME Associates and they discuss the state of tiny homes in Connecticut, including legislation that affects these accessory dwelling units - such as tiny houses and temporary healthcare structures (also known as “granny pods”), what the legislation means for the 169 Connecticut municipalities, and how other states are addressing this new housing trend and the resulting dwelling density considerations.

As developers and applicants look fondly on municipalities that are streamlined and able to get development up and running quickly, the question for towns and cities becomes, how do our local land use policies incentivize and streamline economic development projects? And how does this affect the reputation of our community in the eyes of potential developers and applicants?

In this episode of CERCONOMY, CERC’s Vice President of Municipal Services, Courtney Hendricson, is joined by Karen Pollard, the Economic Development Director for the Town of New Milford, Connecticut to continue their conversation on the topic of streamlining the land use regulatory process at the recent IEDC Conference, where they presented to a room of economic developers from across the U.S, Canada, and the U.K. Listen as Courtney and Karen share ways that towns and cities can make their processes predictable and consistent, and ideas that have worked in the Town of New Milford.

The retail industry is going through a remarkable transformation - in part due to technology as well as cultural and social shifts.

In this episode of CERCONOMY, Alissa DeJonge, CERC's Vice President of Research, and Rachel Gretencord, CERC's Financial and Research Analyst, sit down to discuss the changes occurring in the retail marketplace, and what retailers need to do in order to survive - including establishing destinations where shoppers want to go and spend time - creating authentic experiences. Rachel highlights ways in which downtown retailers and shopping centers can differentiate themselves from the online and discount stores that are dominating the landscape.

Global industry leader, Stanley Black & Decker and Techstars, a worldwide accelerator that helps entrepreneurs succeed, have partnered to run The STANLEY+Techstars Accelerator in Hartford. Focused on additive manufacturing and sustainable packaging solutions, they search the world for established startups that are developing innovative solutions in these areas - searching for disruptive solutions in software, hardware, or materials.

Just off the successful second annual Demo Day held October 7th at the Bushnell, Stanley Black & Decker’s Vice President of Business Development, Marty Guay, joins Kristi Sullivan, CERC’s Vice President of Marketing, in this episode to share how the company is committed to leaning into Hartford - and Connecticut - to help with the vitalization, and revitalization, of their legacy through the creation of an advanced manufacturing epicenter here in the capital region.

https://www.techstars.com/stanley-program/

Recently, Erron Smith, CERC’s Associate Director of Business Development sat down with Alissa DeJonge, Vice President of Research, to chat about a recent conference he attended - the Industrial Asset Management Council (IAMC) Professional Forum. Held in Milwaukee, the forum brought together economic developers, service providers, and end users (companies). As a first time visitor to Milwaukee, Erron was impressed with the city’s efforts to transform the historical industrial economy and strategically utilize the existing assets, and how Connecticut, with its similar post industrial challenges, can benefit by learning from cities like Milwaukee.

Wanting to capitalize on the “airtime” with the other forum attendees, Erron was impressed with how the organizers structured the agenda to allow each audience member - economic developers, service providers, and end users - to engage with one another and build on relationships, including the discussions on technology automation and its effect on the workforce, and how this is leading the site location decision for both domestic and international companies looking to (re)locate.

Listen as Erron and Alissa discuss the forum experience, site section considerations, the importance of networking, and Erron’s first time axe throwing!

In this episode, Susan Powers of Sandler Training, joins Kristi Sullivan, Vice President of Marketing at CERC, to share ways to re-think the answer to the common networking question of “so, what do you do?”

Instead of focusing on the features and benefits of your offering, Susan recommends ways to connect emotionally, making it easy to start a conversation and develop a connection. Listen for ways to help improve your 30-second commercial.