Community development playbook seeks to fuel $1.1 billion transformation in Erie region

The approach is strategic, driven by conversations with dozens of community stakeholders and aimed at creating as much as $1.1 billion worth of big-impact change throughout the Erie region.

It seeks to make sure that Erie is well-positioned to access the billions of dollars in federal aid and other funding that will be available over the next several years for a host of uses.

The plan also includes nearly three dozen suggested priority projects for the region. They include:

• The redevelopment of vacant, crumbling industrial sites

• Fortifying local plastics recycling, manufacturing, and technology businesses

• Continued upgrades in downtown Erie and along the city’s waterfront

• Remaking the 12th Street industrial corridor

• Housing improvements and strengthening city neighborhoods

• Broadband internet expansion; roads, bridges and other infrastructure upgrades

• Bosting entrepreneurship, with a focus on businesses owned by people of color

And as part of the plan, a new “nerve center” has been created to coordinate projects, streamline funding requests and make sure that public, private and civic leaders stay on the same page.

Titled “Erie’s Inclusive Growth: A Framework for Action,” the initial draft of the region’s investment playbook —endorsed by a host of local officials including Erie Mayor Joe Schember and Erie County Executive Brenton Davis — was unveiled Friday.

The playbook was designed by urban policy experts Bruce Katz and Florian Schalliol of New Localism Associates of Arlington, Va., which helps municipalities craft growth strategies and find innovative ways to fund community development.

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A guide to get the money

The investment playbook Katz and Shalliol designed for the Erie region, which could be revised over time, will help the region’s leaders effectively pursue different pots of government funding, both from existing aid programs and grants that are expected to be available over the next few years.

That includes funding from the American Rescue Plan that has already been allocated to municipalities, as well as  the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, approved by Congress in November, a $550 billion plan intended to improve roads, bridges, railroads, airports and upgrade public transit throughout the country.

For each of its recommended projects, the playbook also lays out how they could be funded via combinations of federal, state, local and public/private investments.

Katz and Shalliol reviewed a dozen regional plans and interviewed roughly 50 "stakeholders" in the region as they did their playbook research, including elected officials, local planners, business owners, members of local board/authorities, members of the minority community and the leaders of various neighborhood groups.

Katz said the playbook’s purpose is a simple one: to make sure Erie is well-positioned to go after what he called the “firehose” of state and federal funding.

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“The federal government is investing enormous amounts of funds... This is a moment where you just don’t need a plan for your city or county or metropolitan area, you need a playbook,” Katz said.

“You need a portfolio of projects where you could (estimate) the capital costs and begin to think through leveraging up private and civic investment for transformative impact.”

Schember said the playbook “will serve as our region’s road map for many years to come.  It is a living playbook that will change as needs of the Erie region change.”

Davis added: “The investment playbook is a starting point to identify and prioritize projects in Erie County. This will allow us to leverage similar projects collectively across the region to maximize the potential for federal investment.”

Recommended projects

Katz said Erie’s playbook identifies dozens of projects countywide that can maximize federal investments.  Many of them are shovel ready, he said, and focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.

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The projects recommended by the playbook include:

Building new industries in plastics recycling, advanced manufacturing, and the blue economy:

• Creating a center for manufacturing competitiveness and a heavy industrial battery testing center.

• New investments in regional recycling plants/technologies

• Creating a Great Lakes testing and remediation lab

• Launching a Corry-based hub focused on housing projects and businesses related to broadband internet expansion

Entrepreneurship aimed at growing new businesses, especially those owned by people of color: 

• Boost the programming/capacity of the region’s entrepreneurial support organizations

• Provide “quality capital” for small businesses in Erie

• Establish Supply Erie to provide purchasing help for local businesses

Improving community-wide infrastructure:

• Invest regionally in complete, widely–accessible broadband internet

• Improve the connection to Presque Isle State Park via gateway projects such as the one underway along West Eighth Street

• Implement the Active Erie transportation plan

• Improve the region’s power grid to create renewable, dependable energy, including the core of the city of Erie

• Expand capacity for the city of Erie’s Planning Department

Downtown Erie improvements

• Investment in streets improvements

• Create mechanisms to provide more assistance to people experiencing homelessness

• Accelerate “adaptive reuse” of key anchor properties along State Street, between 9th and 14th streets

Erie’s bayfront

• Completion of Scott Enterprises’ Bayfront Place development on the city’s east bayfront

• Finishing Erie Events’ Harbor place development on the city’s west bayfront

• Launching the Bayfront Parkway improvement project

• Investment in new, modern stormwater systems on the bayfront

• Establishment of a ‘World Class Waterfront Task Force” that would look at ways to grow/improve the bayfront

• Extensive environmental cleanup at the former Erie Coke property near the foot of East Avenue so the property can be reused

West 12th Street industrial corridor

• Redevelopment of the former Erie Malleable Iron Co. property along the West 12th Street industrial corridor

• Identifying, purchasing and cleaning up 3-5 additional properties for reuse along the West 12th Street corridor

• Boosting the capacity of the Erie County Redevelopment Authority

Neighborhood improvements

• Expand the Erie Center for Arts and Technology and improve the East Avenue corridor on the east bayfront, starting at East Sixth Street and extending south

• Accelerate the East Side Renaissance project along Parade Street, which focuses on the area between East Sixth and East 12th streets

• Redevelopment of Savocchio Opportunity Park, located near East 16th Street and Downing Avenue in one of Erie’s poorest neighborhoods.

• Complete Housing and Neighborhood Development Service’s Hammermill affordable housing development

• Implement the Erie Redevelopment Authority’s comprehensive housing plan

• Expand homeownership citywide, with a focus on Black residents

• Build the capacity of developers of color/the local minority construction workforce

• Purchase and reuse the Burton School property

• Create a conservancy to preserve and support public parks

• Boost the capacity of local community organizations

The potential funding sources for the recommended projects/initiatives include city, county, federal and state grants; investor equity; bank borrowing; "soft loans" which generally have more favorable borrowing terms than market-rate loans; and philanthropic grants.

'Ambitious' playbook

Katz said much of the community development work that has happened in Erie in recent years has laid the groundwork for the playbook’s effective deployment.

That includes the Erie Downtown Development Corp. accessing federal Opportunity Zones, which provide special tax benefits for investors who use capital gains to invest in designated low-income areas, to finance downtown improvement projects near Perry Square, as well as the city of Erie’s continued commitment to Erie Refocused, the city’s comprehensive, multiyear development plan.

“We were intrigued by the notion that you could do a playbook both for the greater downtown, but do it in such a way, anticipating the infrastructure money, that you would be required to think countywide,” Katz said.  “The result is we have a playbook that is probably the most ambitious in the United States right now.”

Erie’s playbook was inspired in large part by the East Side Avenues initiative in Buffalo, N.Y., which focused on boosting small businesses, improving public spaces and workforce development, and building wealth/creating opportunities within communities of color.

That effort was also heavily financed by federal, state, private and philanthropic sources.

Kim Thomas, the former director of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development's northwest region office, has been hired to direct the investment playbook’s Nerve Center.

She will work closely with a steering committee that includes Davis and Schember, a number of other local officials/business leaders, and those working on Erie-area diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Christina Marsh, Erie Insurance’s diversity and community development officer, called the playbook “an extension of the collaboration we’re already seeing in Erie, with public, private and civic leadership coming to the table for the good of the community.”

Katz agreed.

"I think you're ready in Erie," Katz said. "You can get everybody around one table... And there's a lot of important things happening here already."

Contact Kevin Flowers at kflowers@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ETNflowers.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie unveils $1.1B playbook for regional growth. Here are the details