Peoria should emphasize downtown and be friendly to cannabis industry, chamber CEO says

In the second part of a two-part interview with the Journal Star, Peoria Area Chamber of Commerce CEO Joshua Gunn discussed Peoria's cannabis industry, the benefits that might come from a passenger rail line to Chicago, and the possibility that start-ups might be the future of the city's economy.

The following has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

'Peoria's got a lot to sell'The future of downtown and how the city can capitalize on societal changes

Question: What can the Peoria city government do to improve the business climate here?

Answer: Such a loaded question [laughs]. I think we have great city leaders. I've only been in Peoria two and a half years, so I'm still sort of new and quite frankly still assessing some of those things but in my two and a half years, I think being being hyper focused on vibrancy in our downtown is one low hanging fruit that our city and county officials can focus on. We had a group of site selectors from the Site Selectors Guild come to visit Peoria just a couple weeks ago. Our Economic Development Council, Chris Setti and Lenora Fisher organized that visit. It was really informative and they said everything that I'm saying to you. It's all about talent. It's all about real estate. But what does talent want? Talent wants to live in a community with a vibrant downtown. We have great pockets in this community, but in many ways our downtown is becoming a little bit of a donut hole and the site selectors described it specifically as that. A lot of activity around the outside of that downtown core, but limited activity, right where it matters, which is your front door, your downtown.

So if I was a city official and I was thinking economic development, I would be consistently thinking, 'How can I make investments to make my downtown vibrant, exciting, fun, attractive and a 24/7 downtown?' We cannot move forward and be an attractive place for talent if our downtown closes at 5 p.m. and is only open when we have a festival. Our downtown needs to be active and exciting and that's not just the responsibility of the businesses in downtown anymore. The way that we approach this has to be different and I'd love to see our city leaders make really big investments in downtown because as your downtown becomes more vibrant your city immediately becomes more attractive and the other neighborhoods around your downtown and even further out into the outskirts all benefit from the economic growth that is really sparked in our urban core.

I think our city leaders are doing a great job focusing on the urgent needs— things like crime and public safety, potholes and streets. They're making massive improvements in that and quite frankly, I think they've done a really good job of capturing the funds that were available through the (American Rescue Plan) and COVID funds to address those sort of bleeding wounds that we have as a community, and you can see that the streets are getting paved, things are getting smoother. We're making strategic investments in public safety, we got a great new police chief. They're thinking differently about crime prevention beyond just law enforcement. So I think we're doing great job on those sort of really urgent issues. But we've got to emphasize our downtown.

More:Peoria City Council members clash over cannabis, mull dispensary moratorium

Question: The Peoria City Council is in the middle of deliberations on whether to restrict the number and placement of new cannabis dispensaries that can open in the city and whether to allow on-site consumption of marijuana at venues in the city. What is your view on the impact that legal cannabis sales have had on the local community and economy, and where would you like to see the city’s policies go in that area?

Answer: It's difficult for me to answer that. I don't have any data to support the overall impact of cannabis on the economy. I would suggest, though, that it's mostly been positive. I think our existing dispensaries are responsible employers. I think they employ dozens of people in the Peoria region. They're paying into taxes. Their employees are paying into taxes. I think from an economic standpoint, it's been really great. And in fact, I think there's opportunity to continue to expand that vertical. We're a chamber of commerce. We're focused on what's going to be great for growing our economy. And the way that we think about that is, what's going to be the revenue impact for the region? What's going to be the employment impact? In the cannabis industry, there are a wide range of employment opportunities.

I get to sit on a cannabis curriculum advisory board for Illinois Central College, and what's been fascinating about that is we're not just thinking about recreational consumption. Cannabis is a pretty phenomenal plant, if you think about it. You can use it to build to make clothing. You can use cannabis for its medicinal purposes. But the economic potential of cannabis is tremendous and in a region that's thinking about attracting and growing and retaining talent, I think it could be a viable opportunity for us to continue to think of ways to be friendly to that industry.

More:Peoria City Council approves $100,000 for new passenger rail study

Question: Peoria is in the process of applying for federal funding for a passenger rail line to Chicago. Are you optimistic about the ability of the train line to galvanize further business growth in Peoria, if it does get built?

Answer: I'm very optimistic and excited about the opportunity, people in this region travel to Chicago quite a bit, and it's a bit of a hassle to sit in traffic and drive and it's also a bit of a hassle to go to Normal to catch the train there. I think it would be an added level of convenience and added level of business opportunity too for individuals in Chicago to do business in Peoria and start to think of Peoria as a more connected destination. As you think about metropolitan areas, the Northeast Corridor is great example of this. I lived in that part of the country for a while and even though I was several hours away from DC, DC felt very much like a part of the region that I was in, living in the Philadelphia metro, because it was rail accessible.

I applaud Mayor (Rita) Ali and former secretary (Ray) Lahood on their leadership here. I know it's difficult to get excited about something that might be 10 years in the future, but if we can sort of put our own individual experiences aside and think about what this means for the Peoria area, it's going to be tremendous and quite frankly, it's sort of a gaping wound for us not to have that rail access.

More:How $5 million is designed to help the manufacturing industry in the Peoria area

Question: Peoria's economy has been defined by a series of different industries over its history, from distilleries to manufacturing to healthcare. Events in recent years, like the success of Natural Fiber Welding, and the “living laboratory” program that the city recently implemented in partnership with Distillery Labs, have spurred conversations about whether Peoria has a future as a start-up hub. Do you anticipate that aspect of the city’s economy becoming more central going forward?

Answer: Absolutely. I think Natural Fiber Welding's a good example of why we can become a start-up hub. This was incubated at Bradley University— (NFW CEO Luke) Haverhals and his research— through the Peoria Next Innovation Center, which is where these types of ideas are incubated and then there's the wet lab space to test it out and make sure that this is viable, and today he's employing hundreds of people here in the Peoria area. Fashion leaders from Milan are flying into Peoria, Illinois to look at the future of textiles. BMW is looking at ways to retool the interior of their cars with this material that's created here in Peoria, Illinois. I think it's a fantastic story, but I think it emphasizes for us the need to continue to support entrepreneurs. Because any economic developer will tell you the best way to grow your economy is to grow your own. It's really costly, really time intensive to go and attract an industry. It takes a lot of resources to do that but growing your own and having multiple employers of several hundred employees is a much more sustainable model. So entrepreneurship and innovation, I think, is key.

More:Natural Fiber Welding was born in Peoria. But its future here is not a given. Here's why

I also think we can build a more robust ecosystem. Peoria Next Innovation lab is one of those pieces. Our higher education partners, ICC, Eureka College, Bradley are other pieces. The private sector's investment is another piece. Thinking about taking some risks on some really fantastic ideas and catalyzing our economy. That is another component where I'd like to see us making some investments and that's already happening. There's Central Illinois Angels, Gilmore Foundation, Community Foundation of Central Illinois, all thinking differently about entrepreneurship and Innovation, then there's places like Distillery Labs, which will be this massive maker space, co-working space and another innovation ecosystem that's being built. So without a doubt, this will be a vital part of the economy and the Peoria region. Its success, though, is depending upon our willingness to invest in that and sort of evolve our way of thinking about economic development and emphasize or put entrepreneurs at the center of it.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Chamber CEO: Peoria should emphasize downtown, embrace cannabis industry