Uptown Consortium, Inc. (UCI) and its partners WEB Ventures LLC (WEB) and Terrex Development & Construction recently presented at the Ohio Economic Development Association’s (OEDA) Annual Summit to discuss UCI’s economic inclusion initiatives. The 2020 Annual Summit themed, “Moving the Needle,” focused on how economic development practitioners continue to impact their communities.
UCI’s discussion, “How to Develop a Long-Term Economic Inclusion Initiative,” provided an overview of UCI’s economic inclusion model, WEB’s role, and their work with Terrex on the Uptown Gateway development at the intersection of Martin Luther King Drive and Reading Road. Beth Robinson, President and CEO of UCI, Howard Elliott, principal at WEB, and Peter Horton, principal at Terrex, served on the panel.
UCI’s economic inclusion initiative focuses on two key areas: workforce development and employment opportunities for Uptown residents and contracting, investing and other business opportunities for minority- and women-owned businesses.
“We’re here to talk about how we’ve been working very diligently to make sure that our community members grow along with us and that they benefit from all of this development and growth that’s coming to the Uptown area,” said Robinson. “We engaged WEB Ventures to help us craft an economic inclusion framework and plan to help us make sure that the results that we all wanted and believed were a priority would actually come to fruition. And I’m very happy to say that the process has been working well for a couple of years.”
Elliott explained in detail how WEB approaches the inclusion initiatives and shared several examples of the process in action. Then, Terrex explained their relationship with WEB over the past four years and the different efforts they’ve implemented as part of UCI’s economic inclusion strategy on the Uptown Gateway development.
“If there’s one point that I can get across to everyone, I think first and foremost, you have to have commitment that this is what you’re going to do and commitment in achieving the results you’re setting out to do,” said Robinson. “But also, it’s really a partnership between the private-sector developers, our group—a private nonprofit development group—and also we have a great partner and a great partnership with WEB Ventures that we contract with to provide these services. And I think that’s really making the difference.”
This is one of several times UCI, WEB and Terrex have presented UCI’s economic inclusion model as an industry-wide best practice to demonstrate how others—economic development organizations, construction companies and more—can implement similar initiatives. In 2019, UCI and its partners presented at the American Planning Association’s National Planning Conference and the Anchor District Forum, which UCI hosted in Uptown.
In the past two years, UCI’s economic inclusion initiatives also won local, regional and international awards, including the International Economic Development Council’s Excellence’s Excellence in Economic Development gold award for Economic Equity and Inclusion, OEDA’s Excellence in Innovation award, and the CLIMB Awards Goal Setter of the Year award.
View UCI’s full OEDA Annual Summit presentation on www.ohioeda.com.