According to the Jefferson City Area Chamber of Commerce, both Jefferson City and Cole County saw an "anticipated economic return" of roughly $641,000 in 2014.
At the City Council meeting Monday, the chamber presented its annual economic development report, which also is scheduled to be presented to the Cole County Commission today. The chamber receives $185,000 from the city and $150,000 from the county for economic development services.
Randy Allen, chamber president and CEO, said the anticipated economic return consisted of looking at existing business expansions throughout the last several years and calculating the contributing sales and property taxes from those expansions, as well as looking at overall wage growth in the community.
The report predicts the anticipated economic return for the city and county in 2016, which would be after 10 years of contracting with the chamber for economic development, will be up to $699,000.
"That investment is growing," Allen said.
Allen said the chamber spent 60 percent of its budget, or $555,405, on economic development, with the remaining 40 percent, or $371,253, being spent on chamber activities. Allen specifically noted that the city and county contribution paid for $335,000 of that economic development spending, while the rest came from the chamber's subsidiary 21st Century Land Investments and chamber membership income.
Allen said the chamber has discussed some options for economic development projects for 2015 at its recent retreat and requested a joint meeting with the council and the County Commission sometime in the next two months to discuss 2015 economic development priorities.
Missy Bonnot, economic development director for the chamber, said 28 projects were worked on in 2014, with three site visits throughout the year. Bonnot profiled two site visits from Asian companies looking for a new location where Jefferson City was eliminated due to the cost of site improvements or not enough available land.
Bonnot also profiled a new project from Special Olympics Missouri to build the Training for Life campus in Jefferson City, which was announced in January. The campus will be built on a 15.5-acre site near U.S. 54 and Missouri 179 that was donated by Land Investments.
"This is a project I'm very excited about, the chamber is very excited about," Bonnot said.
Shaun Sappenfield, existing business manager at the chamber, said there were six announced expansions in 2014, which will create 162 jobs and $6.3 million in payroll. The announced expansions include Alpla, Scholastic, Unilever, Huber and Associates, Sonoco and Wipro.
In other business, Mayor Eric Struemph announced that City Administrator Steve Crowell is nearing his one-year anniversary on the job and it's time for an annual review. He asked council members to send him any input on Crowell's performance so far and indicated the review would be finished in the next two weeks.