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City Council Regular Meeting Minutes February 11, 2014 Page 3 1 B. Greater MSP presentation. David Griggs, Greater MSP, presenting. 2 3 Mayor Faust introduced David Griggs from Greater MSP. 4 5 Mr. Griggs explained that Greater MSP represents the 16 -county MSA region and Greater 6 MSP's mission is to accelerate job growth and capital investment in the Greater MSP region with 7 three key areas of focus, including regional economic development strategy, marketing, 8 branding, and promotion, and job retention, expansion, and attraction. He explained Greater 9 MSP's research function and stated they have identified five sectors of strength including 10 financial services and insurance, advanced manufacturing and technology, health and life 11 sciences, headquarters and business services, and food and water solutions. He stated that 12 Greater MSP has tools and databases available to all of its partners that can help with 13 information gathering and analysis and they are able to produce a variety of data driven reports 14 to focus on an industry or opportunity with solid research. He advised that Greater MSP can also 15 help its partners respond to Requests for Information (RFI) from site selectors. He stated the 16 research department also conducts a variety of studies and discussed a recent perception analysis 17 that was completed where site selectors and corporate executives around the country and Canada 18 were asked what they thought about Minneapolis/St. Paul and the overall perception was 19 positive. He discussed Greater MSP's marketing tools and capabilities and the brand platform of 20 "Business and People Prosper Here." He also discussed Greater MSP's business attraction and 21 expansion efforts and the job growth goal of a total increase of 100,000 net new jobs lost during 22 the recession and indicated that 66,000 net new jobs have been created through 2013. He 23 presented the 2013 business investment results including 130 projects and over 4,900 jobs 24 pledged, adding that 80% of projects are due to companies currently located in the Greater MSP 25 region. He also discussed the Business Retention and Expansion program and the resources 26 available to partners, including an online tool that partners can use to gain access to the database. 27 28 Councilmember Stille thanked Mr. Griggs for his presentation and requested an example of other 29 successes Greater MSP has had with a first ring suburb that is fully built out, similar to St. 30 Anthony. 31 32 Mr. Griggs stated that a community like St. Anthony would probably have companies looking to 33 expand and Greater MSP can help the City compete by bringing in experts that can identify 34 different opportunities a company may not have thought about with regard to their own footprint. 35 He added that Greater MSP has identified 27 strong subsectors in this region and these are 36 companies with high growth potential and the City may or may not recognize these subsectors 37 within its community and Greater MSP is working to make municipalities aware of these 38 companies and potential opportunities for cities to expand their employment base without doing 39 a lot of work other than making sure a company has what it needs to grow. 40 41 Councilmember Jenson asked what the City could do to promote under-utilized areas that are 42 zoned light industrial. 43 44 Mr. Griggs suggested that the City make sure these properties are being represented by a 45 MNCAR broker and also suggested the City work with Megan Livgard who handles Greater 46 MSP's Business Retention and Expansion program. 47