Chamber work to fuel business expansion vital to city's continued growth

Oklahoma City has grown significantly over the last decade, so much so that we are now the 20th largest city in the U.S. An accomplishment like that doesn’t come by accident, but rather through hard work, know-how and determination – and a little luck sometimes – in order to attract newcomers and new business to the region.

The Chamber’s Economic Development staff is on a constant mission to grow existing industries, recruit new companies and develop an active entrepreneurial environment, with the goal of creating quality jobs and a diverse economy for the region; in other words, bring new investment to the city. Those efforts have led to positive results, especially during the most recent reporting period from 2016 to 2020 when more than 400 new projects or expansions were announced and over 23,000 new jobs created, with average salaries more than $5,000 higher than mean annual wages for the local metro area.

“If local companies are planning to expand or if they have some barriers to growth, our team can help connect them with resources to resolve issues or help with their expansion projects,” said Jeff Seymour, the Chamber’s executive vice president of economic development.

The team also works with local developers and existing destination retailers to bring new destination retail to the community. Businesses like Costco and Chicken N Pickle bring new investment into the community by attracting shoppers from and outside the Oklahoma City limits.

Research is key to supporting economic growth, and the Chamber has a research team dedicated to providing data assistance or information for recruiting new businesses from outside the state, helping existing industry or to providing support to Chamber members when they need some data or information.

To keep abreast of which companies are looking to relocate or expand to other states or cities, the Chamber team relies on the work of their research team, as well as site location consultants, the local real estate community, and a variety of other partners, including the Oklahoma Department of Commerce.

The team leads the Greater Oklahoma City Partnership, a multitalented team of economic development specialists in our 10-county region to respond to these opportunities – providing the data they need as well as information on available real estate, talent pipelines, incentives, and more.

The current project pipeline is strong,  with 97 projects in the pipeline. The team is in active communication with each project, trying to help those companies as they make a critical decision about where to locate, one which hinges on a customized set of decision factors.

“Whether it is a new company looking at Oklahoma City or an existing company thinking about expanding, we will not land all of those projects simply because there are so many factors that we have no control over, such as market conditions or a company’s strategic direction,” said Kim Wilmes, vice president of economic development programs at the Chamber. She explained that the Chamber focuses its recruiting efforts mainly on aerospace, manufacturing, bioscience, and headquarter and back-office operations.

“We focus our marketing and sales efforts there because we have a competitive advantage already. We have an existing cluster and industry expertise. Also, those are the industries that typically pay higher-than-average wages and they are the jobs we want here to grow the economy,” she said.

One of the biggest hurdles or challenges Wilmes and the rest of the Economic Development team consistently face is finding enough available, ready-to-go properties within Oklahoma City’s city limits to meet the needs of companies they are trying to entice to relocate or expand into OKC. At 620 square miles, Oklahoma City is one of the largest cities in the nation. But, despite all of that space, there is a lack of property inventory specific to employers. To help eliminate or reduce that hurdle, Wilmes said, more investment is needed from the city and state, as well as from other resources, including ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds. And we need to ensure that land set aside by the city for employers isn’t rezoned or repurposed for other uses.

“The communities that are winning are the ones that have shovel-ready or pad-ready sites, and we just don’t have that many. It is costly to do and involves some risk, so it is understandable,” Wilmes said.

Recruiting can be a labor-intensive and time consuming proposition for any economic development organization, and the Chamber is no different. To be on the short list of locations for a company looking to relocate or expand their operations, the Chamber will spend a lot of time communicating directly with business executives and the site consultants they hire. Consultans are also important partners, since they work for multiple companies and can bring multiple projects to the table.

Conferences and trade shows are excellent venues to meet consultants face to face. By attending these events throughout the year, Chamber staff are able to develop relationships that could potentially lead to projects being directed their way. Most of these events are located in places such as Dallas, Chicago, New York and Atlanta, where the team will also conduct call trips.

Twice a year, the Chamber also hosts an event in Dallas with the Greater Oklahoma City Partnership, to continue nurturing relationships with site location consultants and other decision makers in the area.

“We’ll host a reception and have about 20 consultants there. We include all of our regional economic development partners as well as our utility and infrastructure partners, like OG&E and ONG,” Wilmes said.

In addition, the Economic Development team attends several other industry or association trade shows to reach out to company executives. For example, in June team members led a delegation to BIO 2022 in San Diego, along with members of the Oklahoma Bioscience Association. There are several aerospace-related trade shows the team attends, as well as a manufacturing logistics show and an electric vehicle and battery show. The team also attends several of the Innovating Commerce Serving Communities (ICSC) conferences and even chairs the Red River Conference, as well as the Urban Land Institute conferences.

The availability of talent is the other barrier many companies have when considering and expansion and the Chamber is working closely with educational institutions to better align curriculum or training to meet industry needs. Wilmes specifically mentioned Onward OKC, a new compact making it easy for businesses to create a prepared workforce by leveraging the combined resources of five CareerTech districts.

“What we are trying to do here is make sure that we get more people into the available talent pool,” she said. “What our staff has been doing in partnership with our educational institutions as well as with nonprofit partners throughout the region have been game changers in helping us recruit companies to come here.”

This article originally appeared in the August 2022 edition of the VeloCity newsletter.