Last week, the State of Illinois began accepting applications for the Back to Business grant -- a $250 million pot of money available for small businesses who were financially impacted by COVID. Grant sizes range from $5,000 to $150,000, depending ...
I typically use this space in our monthly newsletter to discuss a broad topic regarding our regional economy, whether that has been about talent attraction, the importance of manufacturing or the rise of the healthcare industry. But this month I ju ...
I moved to Peoria 18 years ago. We relocated here from Denver, but I’m originally from the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank. We chose Peoria for a pretty ordinary reason: my wife, who I first met while living in Chicago, is from Peoria Heights. With o ...
As you can imagine, I’m a big proponent of a regional approach to economic development: the borders between communities are fluid and when employers are strong in one community it benefits all our communities. While the work ultimately has to be fo ...
Whenever I make a presentation, I always start with a brief mention of our organizational mission statement: “The Greater Peoria Economic Development Council, in collaboration with our local partners, drives economic growth in Greater Peoria through ...
In January, GPEDC received an email from the state of Illinois showing the allotment amount for each municipality from their Local Coronavirus Urgent Remediation Emergency Support (Local CURES) program. The program, which launched in Fall 2020, was ...
In our January newsletter, I used this space to discuss the finalization of the region’s five year plan, the Big Table Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS). We used the newsletter as part of the launch of a 30-day public comment window ...
Every year, our friends at the Illinois Manufacturing Association (IMA) run a fun and cool contest called “Makers Madness.” The bracket-style competition, patterned on the NCAA college basketball tournament, seeks to name the “coolest thing made in ...
We had a big milestone for Greater Peoria EDC this week. After nearly 18 months of planning and engaged discussions with community members, we finalized our work on the region’s 5-year Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) and rel ...
If nothing else, Thanksgiving 2020 was memorable. It’s normally my favorite day of the year because I love cooking for a crowd. We normally have around 20 people over for dinner, but that did not seem like the wise thing to do this year. But we stil ...
