Siler City’s economic development committee nears its goal to draft strategic plan

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SILER CITY — Siler City leaders inched closer on Thursday toward drafting a strategic plan that may dictate the town’s future economic development.

The town’s 11-person Economic Development Strategic 5-Year Plan Steering Committee — working under Town Planner Jack Meadow’s oversight — was convened last year. Its mission is to scrutinize and assess Siler City’s economic inertia and report to the town’s board of commissioners with a recommended plan of action.

Members include Commissioner Lewis Fadely, Chatham Economic Development Corporation Project Manager Sam Rauf and Chatham-Siler City Advanced Manufacturing (CAM) site owner Tim Booras. The team has worked in partnership with the N.C. Main Street & Rural Planning Center — a subset of the N.C. Dept. of Commerce — which is designed to “inspire placemaking through building asset-based economic development strategies that achieve measurable results such as investment, business growth, and jobs,” according to its website.

MS&RP economic development planners Ann Bass and Bruce Naegelen advise the committee.

Siler City’s economy has long dawdled behind those of its neighbors in the Triangle and Triad. The pandemic set back the steering committee’s plans to address the systemic shortcoming, but its ambitious objectives have not been derailed, its representatives say.

“We are still in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic and we do not know the final economic toll that will be taken on our communities,” an early report said.

But the town is poised to emerge better prepared for a stable economic future.

“Part of the recovery process is to define our vulnerabilities and consciously grow back our economies in a way that increases our ability to [weather] future disruptions,” the report says.

In that vein, the team has spent months analyzing Siler City’s demographic makeup and its retail markets — the town’s novel assets and its encumbrances — all in an effort to prescribe a solution for the enervated economy.

A proposed vision statement to drive economic growth will emphasize that Siler City is replete with unique and enticing features, including the N.C. Arts Incubator and the CAM megasite.

“The incubator is one thing that we have in town that’s sort of unique to Siler City and nowhere else in the state,” Naegelen said. “I could not find another arts incubator that does the same thing as what the one in Siler City does.”

The CAM site — a 1,802-acre industrial megasite in western Chatham County — could attract thousands of new Siler City residents when it populates with heavy industry companies. But the town must prepare now to entice prospective home-buyers.

“What do we need to do for when a 1,000-person company comes to town?” Naegelen said. “Are we ready for that? Because we want them to live in Siler City. We don’t want them to live in Chapel Hill — not even in Pittsboro. We want them to live in Siler City because that’s what this is all about.”

A diverse population is another of the town’s assets, according to an MS&RP report. For communities of Siler City’s size — the greater area of which has almost 27,000 residents — the average “racially diverse,” or non-white, population is 10,469. Siler City, though, has 11,145.

“Siler City gets a gold star for diversity, just slightly above the national average,” the report said. “Cultural diversity is one key benchmark in developing a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem.”

But race relations could be improved, Naegelen said. The town has had a sizable Hispanic community for more than two decades, but its has not always felt welcomed.

“Although relationships are improving,” he said, “there’s still much to be done to gain understanding, trust and participation.”

The town will also need to improve its retail leakage problem. Right now, Siler City forfeits almost $2 million per week in local money that residents spend elsewhere because the town doesn’t satisfy retail demand. More than $80 million in potential spending leaves the town in retail, food and drink sales alone. Including other major industry groups brings the leakage to more than $103 million annually.

The issue is compounded by an employment imbalance, MS&RP representatives said. Most of Siler City’s residents — almost 75% — leave the community for work.

“If workers leave to work elsewhere it is possible and even probable that they will buy gas, groceries and even pick up lunch near work,” the report said. “Those monies are then lost to Siler City and local merchants.”

The steering committee did not discuss details of its plan to address such economic drivers in its meeting on Thursday, but a draft of its strategy is likely to include community engagement across cultural and racial divides, downtown revitalization objectives, neighborhood safety improvements and business development through some kind of incentives, Naegelen said.

The committee is tentatively scheduled to meet once more to finalize its vision statement and strategy after which it will present the group’s recommendations to the Siler City board of commissioners in March.

Reporter D. Lars Dolder can be reached at dldolder@chathamnr.com and on Twitter @dldolder.