May 18 – MINERAL WELLS – The panel in charge of economic development has heard that ties with the east and west of the country have been strengthened.
Leaders of the council-appointed Mineral Wells Economic Development Corp. concluded a meeting on Thursday with reports of growing ties with colleagues in both Strawn and Parker County.
“There’s a lot of growth coming in this part of the province and that part of the province,” immediate past director David Hawes said after reporting that he was joining the Development Corp. van Strawn advises.
The Palo Pinto County city, he said, has annexation plans to link it to Interstate 20.
Hawes and new Director of Economic Development Nathan Dyhre concluded the monthly meeting with a combined report that also included praise for the eastern counterpart of the economic development agency.
“It’s a whole new world between our communities,” Hawes said.
Dyhre said he has joined the board of the North Central Texas Economic Development District, part of the 16-county North Central Texas Council of Government.
He joins his Parker County colleague, Chris Strayer, on that board.
“We have not had such an understanding in the past,” Dyhre said of strengthening economic ties between neighboring provinces.
A little later, Hawes reported that he had been awarded a $450,000 grant to make plans to prevent flooding along Crystal Canal. The water channel flows along the western edge of downtown, contributing to perennial flooding problems.
Hawes said the source of the grant, the Texas Water Development Board, is also about to approve state surpluses of $30 million to $40 million.
The city will pursue that level of support once engineering, funded by the available grant, produces a plan, he said. The funding will help downtown businesses achieve lower rates for insurance offices and make city trails more reliably dry, he said.
“Which will lead to more economic development, visitors and people wanting to say, ‘Hey, I want to live here,’” Hawes said.
Dyhre also urged residents to attend a public meeting to provide input to the state’s transportation planners — specifically to give their two cents on a planned US 281 bypass intended for 18-wheelers and other commercial traffic that now rushes through the heart of the city center.
The Texas Department of Transportation had not announced a date, other than to say it will be in June, for the public meeting on the rural transit improvement plan.
The 281 bypass is planned by TxDOT as part of a larger goal to rebuild that north-south highway to relieve Interstate 35, Dyhre said.
“That’s something that TxDOT has come to us and said is absolutely going to happen,” he said. “It’s something that needs to happen. And when we hear the people who want to come here, that’s what we want to happen.”
Earlier in the meeting, three vendors made pitches to help the city recruit more retailers.
“Nobody has the relationships we have in North Texas,” Aaron Farmer of Retail Coach said via a Zoom call. ‘You have a very good story to tell. We’re going to tell the right people.’
Chris Bontrager of Retail Academy presented in-person workshops and online sessions to introduce local people to networks where large and mid-sized retailers operate.
“We essentially teach you to do what we do,” Bontrager said in a live presentation, describing a recruitment plan to lure restaurants, department stores and grocers. “Once that recruiting plan is delivered, we’re off to the races.”
And Bryan Beatty pitched on Zoom an interactive website that he can design with GIS Planning that will help retailers identify properties that best fit their needs.
