A day before he came into the WGIL studio, Ken Springer sat in a Chicago room with the national consultants who help companies decide where to build, and their message was blunt. Springer, president of the Knox County Area Partnership for Economic Development, joined WGIL's Jay Redfern on Galesburg's Morning News on Thursday, Oct. 1, to share what he heard at the Illinois Economic Development Association's Site Selector Forum, along with an update on the roughly 80 acres KCAP is marketing at Galesburg's Logistics Park, the city's housing gap, a $15 billion steel project planned in Iowa and Friday's Knox County CEO student meet and greet. As Springer put it: "Ultimately, the job of these site consultants is to rule communities out."
They talked about:
- What site consultants are really looking for, and why they want to cross your town off the list
- How KCAP works a trade show long before the doors open
- What the DeLong project will do, and what it leaves behind for the next employer
- Why keeping a company can matter more than landing a new one
- The kind of housing Galesburg needs, according to the city's own study
- What a $15 billion Iowa steel plant could mean an hour away
Related story: Ready sites win: KCAP's Ken Springer on what site consultants want and how Galesburg is preparing
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