Economic Development
The District has prepared and served as the administrator of several economic development grant applications on behalf of municipalities and counties in order to provide job opportunities and promote private investment. An economic development infrastructure project involves the interaction of several persons, including a mayor or county mayor, economic development professionals, funding agency representatives, company representatives, and/or engineers.
Public Works: Empowers distressed communities to revitalize, expand, and upgrade their physical infrastructure to attract new industry, encourage business expansion, diversify local economies, and generate or retain long-term, private sector jobs and investment.
Economic Adjustment: Assists state and local interests in designing and implementing strategies to adjust or bring about change to an economy. The program focuses on areas that have experienced or are under threat of serious structural damage to the underlying economic base.
Community Trade Adjustment Assistance: Provides project grants to communities that have experienced, or are threatened by, job loss resulting from international trade impacts.
Partnership Planning: Supports local organizations (Economic Development Districts, Indian Tribes, and other eligible areas) with long-term planning efforts.
Trade Adjustment Assistance for Firms: A national network of 11 Trade Adjustment Assistance Centers to help strengthen the competitiveness of American companies that have lost domestic sales and employment because of increased imports of similar goods and services.
University Centers: A partnership of the federal government and academia that makes the varied and vast resources of universities available to the economic development community.
Research and National Technical Assistance: Supports research of leading edge, world class economic development practices and information dissemination efforts.
Local Technical Assistance: Helps fill the knowledge and information gaps that may prevent leaders in the public and nonprofit sectors in distressed areas from making optimal decisions on local economic development issues.
Disaster Relief: The Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) can assist communities in addressing long-term disaster relief and recovery needs. Through competitive grants to eligible applicants, EDA’s disaster recovery generally falls within three categories:
- Strategic Planning and Technical Assistance
- EDA offers financial resources and technical assistance to help develop and enhance economic development plans following a disaster. This is generally achieved through the funding of disaster recovery plans, strategies, and funding for disaster recovery coordinators.
- Infrastructure Design and Development
- EDA offers grant funds to support the construction design and engineering, or to support the building of new infrastructure, or the retro fit and expansion of existing facilities to foster economic development to retain or attract jobs to the region
- Capital for Alternative Financing
