City’s plan to bolster economic prosperity set in motion

A hot topic of discussion as of late in the Gunnison Valley is the economy—how to revitalize the downtown Main Street storefronts, bolster incomes to match rising costs of living, and how to continue growing into an even more prosperous community. In the recent elections, many candidates focused on these issues as major platform points. 

Working towards this goal of economic prosperity, the City of Gunnison has been developing an extensive, multi-faceted economic development strategy plan called “The Gunnison Advantage: People, Place, Opportunity.” The city hired a private consulting and advisory firm called TIP Strategies, Inc. that specializes in strategic planning for economic development to assist with the formation of the economic plan for the city at large. The three major goals established in this plan are: growing the outdoor recreation economy, leveraging science and technology and investing in place. Extensively detailed actions have been identified that associate with each of these three main goals. In order to implement this extensive plan, the creation of a new nonprofit economic development corporation has been proposed. 

“The No. 1 intent of that entity is to bring all of those contributing economic drivers in our community to have a voice at a table that’s leading our economic strategy forward. So the plan is our shared alignment and our collective, shared path forward,” City Manager Amanda Wilson said.

This economic development corporation would be modeled after several successful examples in surrounding communities such as Salida, Montrose and Delta. Once established, an executive director and a board of directors and advisors would be selected and put in place. These boards would be composed of representatives from major economic drivers in the Gunnison community such as Western Colorado University, Gunnison Valley Health, the Tourism and Prosperity Partnership (TAPP) and others. While the city’s plan is to initially fund this new economic development corporation, it would eventually be its own separately functioning entity, not governed by the city. Its role and sole purpose would be to enact and implement the steps outlined in the city’s strategic plan. 

“It would have an executive director like a non-profit and other (important local) entities such as Western, the hospital and TAPP would essentially be the board members,” Wilson explained. “They would all have a say as far as how best to drive or promote the economic prosperity of the city and the executive director would have to implement that. Just like I have to follow the direction of the five city council members, this executive director would have to follow the direction of that board.”

This plan, however, is still in the works pending some approvals by the city council. Before the proposed economic development corporation can be officially formed, the first step will be to get the budget approved for such a project.

“First we need budget appropriation—that’s number one,” Wilson said. “Then from there myself and many of the others that served to help form that (economic development) strategy will begin the next steps of starting to legally create the nonprofit, assembling the board, etc.” 

Wilson mentioned that the approval of the budget for this undertaking would be among the items discussed in the city council meeting held on Tuesday. Barring any setbacks, the approval and development of this economic development corporation and the subsequent enactment of the city’s new economic development strategy will begin to take place starting in December and moving forward into 2026.

“Statutorily the budget has to be approved no later than December 15th,” Wilson said. “Council will consider adoption this evening as well as on December 9th, so as long as nothing unexpected goes on it could be adopted on December 9th.”

(Gia Wright can be contacted at 970-641-1414 or jwright@orourkemediagroup.com.)