Bloomington Economic Development with Senior Economic Development Coordinator Jon Branham

On episode #47 of the Building BN podcast, BNEDC CEO Patrick Hoban sits down to speak with Jon Branham, Senior Economic Development Coordinator for the City of Bloomington. Branham is an alumnus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and recently relocated from the suburbs of Chicago to Bloomington-Normal with his wife, a Bloomington native.

Branham begins by explaining his role at the City as a senior economic development coordinator. He says, “Basically what I think my role is, I'm the front of the house for developers, for people interested in doing business. Someone comes in, they have a zoning question, they have a planning question, they have a process question, they have questions about incentives, I'm the person that can help guide them to the right person, the right place, the right application, and go from there. I handle all the redevelopment agreements. I handle all the TIFF reporting. So I'm just working with you guys and trying to get places filled and people in here.”

The City of Bloomington Economic Development Department, from their website, “promotes economic stability and growth through sound planning and development programs including several incentive programs administered by the City, the Bloomington-Normal Economic Development Council, and the State of Illinois.” They offer many services to the community, including promoting long-term economic growth, supporting business retention and expansion to help maintain a low unemployment rate, and efforts related to retail business retention and attraction.

While the City of Bloomington EconDev department does much of the same work as the BNEDC—often in collaboration—one specific difference, explains Hoban, is retail business. He says, “We get asked quite a bit like what's the difference [between the BNEDC and the City of Bloomington EDC]? And right off the bat, retail and non-retail. We don't do retail. If retail comes to us first, we'll definitely do the handoff, but we do no recruiting with it whatsoever.”

Listen to this episode of the podcast in its entirety here. For more information about Economic Development at the City of Bloomington, visit their website at today!