On November 19, GLI’s economic development team traveled to Frankfort, KY to present to the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development. The purpose of the visit was to share updates from the Greater Louisville region and to continue strengthening our relationship with the Cabinet.
The presentation highlighted not only GLI’s role in economic development but also GLI’s work in talent attraction and retention, public policy and advocacy, and business events and education. The GLI team provided a high level overview of the region, with a focus on the Kentucky counties, and discussed the benefits of regionalism such as consistent marketing messages and the ability to promote a larger set of assets than any single jurisdiction, including land availability, quality of life amenities, population, and workforce.
The GLI team explained one of GLI’s industry targeting strategies, which focuses on companies located in regions facing challenges in areas where Greater Louisville has strengths. These challenges include water shortages and utility constraints, rising taxes, logistical barriers, and high congestion. The GLI team emphasized the region’s advantages such as ample water and utility capacity, decreasing state income taxes on both sides of the river, strong logistics infrastructure, and minimal congestion. Additional assets include two river ports, eight airports, three major interstates, 43 business and industrial parks, hundreds of miles of railroad, and a large labor shed.
The GLI team also highlighted the Greater Louisville Partnership website, designed as a one stop shop for brokers and national site selectors. Each community in the 15 county region has its own feature page with consistent, reliable data. The GLI team showcased the property locator, now powered by REsimplifi, which includes more than 1,000 publicly listed properties in the region. The hope is that this tool will be valuable not only for brokers and site selectors but also for the Cabinet as they respond to RFIs and RFPs. The GLI team also noted their efforts to stay informed about sites that are not publicly listed.
Finally, the GLI team reviewed the updated Regional Economic Dashboard. Maintaining objective trend data for Louisville and 16 peer regions is essential for understanding where the region excels and where additional focus is needed. This year, GLI introduced a new “trend” category to reflect year over year changes. The team also shared GLI’s national outreach efforts through conferences and consultant engagement.
Key takeaways from the presentation included a strengthened relationship with Cabinet staff, especially those the GLI team interacts with less frequently, interest in utilizing the REsimplifi feed and integrating GLI’s site data into the Cabinet’s property locator, and initial discussions about a potential project. The GLI team is grateful for our partners at the Cabinet for Economic Development and looks forward to continuing to work together to grow the regional economy.
