The City of Lawrence and its community partners are excited to come together to develop a community-wide economic development strategic plan. This plan seeks bold, fresh and innovative ideas to not only recover from the impacts of the pandemic, but to create an even better and stronger economy for the community going forward. Ernst & Young Economic Development Advisory Services (EDAS) will be assisting the City and its partners in developing the community-wide plan.
A first for the City, the community-wide economic development strategic plan, will be designed to guide the actions of the City, in cooperation with our business and community partners, to achieve goals for an economically secure, innovative, inclusive and vibrant community. The plan is intended to build on the City’s previous economic successes, identify top economic development opportunities for the next few years, prepare the City to respond proactively to the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and develop an action plan for increasing economic growth and prosperity for Lawrence.
Community input will be vitally important and will be incorporated throughout this process. The City and EDAS team have developed a comprehensive communications and stakeholder engagement program that uses a variety of platforms to solicit inclusive, broad-based feedback from the community, including a series of virtual stakeholder meetings and a community survey.
- Virtual Stakeholder Meetings: More than a dozen meetings will be held from Wednesday, August 12 through Friday, August 28. We encourage everyone in our community to participate. The registration forms and additional information are available on the City’s website: lawrenceks.org/ed/strategic-plan.
- Community Survey: The survey is available both online, via Lawrence Listens, as well as in paper copies that can be picked up and dropped off at various community locations, including Lawrence Public Library, Lawrence Workforce Center, Peaslee Technical Center and City Hall.
After input is received, the EDAS team will use the information collected to create reports that will be posted online throughout the plan development process. All new reports will be available on the economic development strategic plan web page: lawrenceks.org/ed/strategic-plan.
Once completed, this plan will serve as a roadmap for the City and its Community partners to build upon local economic advantages, address opportunities for improvements and provide a mechanism to evaluate efforts and redirect policies where needed. Both the City of Lawrence and the EDAS team are excited to work together to make Lawrence a more prosperous and vibrant community.
More information on the economic development strategic plan and opportunities to provide input are available on the City website: lawrenceks.org/ed/strategic-plan. The City is encouraging visitors to the web page to sign up to receive automatic email updates so that they can stay up-to-date with the latest news.
Contact: Britt Crum-Cano, Economic Development Administrator, bcano@lawrenceks.org