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Like a general on the field of battle. The CEO and President of the Tyler Economic Development Council is identifying, sizing up and helping capture companies and projects for East Texas.

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I'm Mike Landis For a first quarter update and a second quarter preview.

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Ut Tyler Radio connects with Scott Martinez.

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Tell us about the recent reconnaissance mission to Chattanooga.

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We went to Chattanooga, tennessee, a delegation of 40 civic and business leaders from Tyler.

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We went to Chattanooga and we spent two days there looking at some of the things they've done to transform that community.

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Walter Cronkite in the early 70s said that Chattanooga was the dirtiest city in America.

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Wow, and they've transformed themselves.

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They were the first city in the Western Hemisphere to have gig speed broadband no kidding, yeah.

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And now they're getting into quantum networking.

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So they've really been an innovator and changed the trajectory of that city and that whole region in East Texas.

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Of course they've got a lot of foreign direct investment with Volkswagen as well as their major logistics hub.

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You see a lot of transportation logistics companies that are very active in the Chattanooga market.

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What is it that got that place on fire, so to speak?

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Leadership.

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In any community that's successful, you have great public and private sector leadership.

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I think the catalyst project for their downtown development was the Aquarium, the Tennessee Aquarium, which is quite impressive.

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They created a city that their citizens wanted to live in.

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That was nice for their community and then people started coming.

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So now there's a lot of tourism there, a lot of outdoor recreation, but also their downtown is just phenomenal and they've got a great university presence there with UT, chattanooga and Chattanooga State Junior College.

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Boy I can see the definite similarities between Tyler and Chattanooga.

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Yeah, you know they've got a branch of a larger public university system, like we do with UT Tyler, and a strong community college, and I was just amazed at some of the things they've done.

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Our delegation came back very enthusiastic and saw a lot of things there that were transferable, things that they've done with their downtown.

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Of course we've got over the next five years we're going to have close to $200 million worth of improvements to our downtown, so we've got to make sure that that's done right.

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We've got to make sure that there's ongoing maintenance and promotion of that downtown, but doing it in a way that's also respectful and very considerate to other parts of our community Because it's not just myopic to downtown Tyler.

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As far as opportunities, we're seeing stuff obviously in continued growth in South Tyler with retail and housing, but also West Tyler.

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Brookshire Grocery Company is doing their store there and it's well underway.

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As far as the site work, jenico Group has cleared a pretty big chunk of property at the other, the caddy corner to where the brooksters grocery store is going.

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And then we've seen some reinvestment in buildings on earl campbell.

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Of course, for seniors, health care came here several years ago and built an 80 000 square foot class, one office building and post-covid they decided to have their employees work from home, so they didn't have the need for this 80,000-square-foot warehouse.

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Fortunately, heat and Eye Care bought the facility and you'll see a lot of traffic once Heat and Eye Care takes over that facility Centene, very similar to Fresenius.

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Post-covid, a lot of their people did not return to the office and they found there were some efficiencies from them working at home.

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So that was followed by a company called TechServe, locally grown, probably have 700 people on their payroll and I anticipate several hundred going into that former Centene building.

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But what you're going to see is a lot of daytime traffic that's going to drive retail and other activity in part of our community that we haven't seen that type of robust growth in the past and see Don Warren's phone light up saying why aren't those traffic lights time better?

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Well, the city just spent substantial money or contract to get those things better.

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Right and he's done a good job with that. I've got to say they work.

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You know, you either grow or you're Mississippi, right?

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Well, that's one way of looking at it. I mean, I'm from Mississippi, so I feel safe saying that.

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You can say that.

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We spoke to Tyler Mayer, don Warren recently. He pointed out that that group that went to three dozen plus that went to Tennessee consisted of quite a few 30 and 40-somethings.

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That was by design and just came back with a lot of energy that they want to carry forward.

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We didn't want this trip to be one and done so.

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Last week we had a follow-up meeting that Tyler Junior College hosted.

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So we'll continue to work around some common themes that came from that trip.

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The big thing was collaboration. You saw the county and the city and the educational institutions really work well together, saw a lot of private foundations there that got involved to make that community better.

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The first phase of the aquarium was funded through a private foundation.

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So that was not the public sector that funded that, and they also have a municipal electric utility that got involved in the broadband.

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So you had that catalyst to get the broadband up and going in Chattanooga.

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Where are we with that here in our market?

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You're seeing a lot of new companies coming to the market Vetsys, fiber I think their spend is going to be about $50 million in Tyler and of course, conterra has been here for a few years, very active.

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But you're seeing more. I look at broadband like electricity was in the 1930s In rural electrification.

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We're seeing the same thing happen with rural broadband.

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Our EPAs, our co-ops, have been very active in deploying fiber.

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Perhaps one of the best fiber providers in our area is the co-ops Interesting Cherokee and some of those folks really provide great fiber.

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The success of the Yellowwood project is kind of a one-two punch, isn't it?

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I mean, you land a big company and then other companies say I'll have what they're having.

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Certainly it's proof of concept. You know it's always more difficult to get the first company in a development like that and of course there were issues that we had to mitigate going through that process, or maybe not really mitigate, but the prior use was used to test munitions and provide training for soldiers being deployed to World War II Right.

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So we had to make sure that we had everything in order as far as the studies that had been done on that property.

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Like EPA type things.

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Just to make sure there wasn't any munitions or anything like that on site.

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That's an ATF type thing.

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The Corps of Engineers did a phenomenal job as far as doing grids with magnometers to make sure there was nothing there, and we've experienced no issues with the road construction or the yellowwood construction.

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There's been absolutely zero issues related to that prior use.

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It's probably the safest uh land to build on in smith county because of all of the studies that have been done on that property, but still, you know the first one's always, you know, the more challenging one, because you've got to show that, you've got to validate the site and show that people can go there with the intent of you know being viable.

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Well, you saw county cooperation as well, I mean, and a big company saw that you know they'll build a road County was tremendous through that, then Judge Moran, now Congressman Moran, and this continued with Judge Franklin and the Commissioner's Court.

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They've been very supportive of deploying American Rescue Plan Act, arpa money for that new roadway.

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That's the first new county road that's been built since the 1950s.

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No kidding, I had no idea.

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So it's over a mile long and what we're seeing is that'll open up other properties for other job creators in that area.

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So, if you can tell us what you're working on, specifics are welcome, but they're not imperative.

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Yeah, I think you'll see announcements in the next 90 days with probably $70 million worth of new projects in that area.

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Which area? In our Tyler Interstate Commerce Park.

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Okay, we're very close on a few as far as announcing, so stay tuned on that.

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Stay tuned. This project, that Tyler Industrial Commerce Park, which is 412 acres.

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We could have most of that sold out before the roads you know closed, complete in the next year.

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That's amazing Because we did market studies to see what that real estate demand was.

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We knew that we needed large tracts of land and having that property be that close to the interstate has been tremendous to market.

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That's amazing. Let's go back to one of the projects you mentioned here in Tyler.

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You were talking about that. Johnicov has cleared off a big piece of land.

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I just happened to be driving out that way the other day and said my goodness, what are they going to build there?

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Well, what are they going to build there?

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Well, I mean, they've got one partial under contract and the others are receiving a lot of interest in.

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I don't know exactly, but you'll see a lot of things that may happen.

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You'll see a lot of restaurants, quick-serve restaurants, that sort of thing, and those shopping centers over there.

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In fact we've got one restaurateur in town today that's part of a chain looking in that area over there.

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Well, I'm thinking about Horace Greeley and the Go West Young man.

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We're going west here in Tyler, aren't we?

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We are. Tyler is unlike many communities in the fact that it grew south and did not grow toward the interstate.

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Typically, communities will grow toward an interstate just because of the mobility and things like that, but we haven't.

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Historically We've grown south and we're seeing just because of so much growth in Tyler you're going to see growth everywhere and you're seeing investments being made and school systems drive a lot of residential growth.

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Chapel Hill passed a school bond last year, an enormous school bond.

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That was well overdue for that school district.

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That was well overdue for that school district and I had lunch last week with the superintendent of that school district.

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There's going to be a new middle school, lots of things.

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And here's what's interesting. You see, of course Tyler Independent School District has done $447 million worth of bonds in the past 10 years.

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Think about that.

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That's amazing.

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The county's got the courthouse about $170 million in bonds that was approved by voters.

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Then you had road bonds that were approved for Smith County roads.

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So I like to tell folks that this is a very physically conservative community but we invest in things that matter.

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Our public schools matter, our justice system here matters with the new courthouse and, of course, mobility with our roads in Smith County.

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But you know we take it to the voters.

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They make that decision and I think we take on debt in a very prudent way, as evidenced by our tax rate.

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Let me get personal with you for just a moment. You're not from East Texas.

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What, if anything would keep you from going to a larger city and do your magic there?

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I wouldn't call it magic. I like the cooperative spirit in Tyler and Smith County.

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It's a can-do attitude. Of course, my job that I have here in Tyler doesn't have a lot of turnover.

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I followed someone who was in this role for 31 years.

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Only the second person had this role. So I like the leadership that I have and I like the structure.

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We're unlike most economic development agencies.

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We're funded primarily by the private sector.

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So we have to be very entrepreneurial and we have to look at that double bottom line.

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When we look at things. We're a 501c3 nonprofit, but that double bottom line is number one are we meeting our mission of job creation and bringing capital investment into our community?

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And number two, is it financially responsible for our organization?

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Because you're not going to come to Tyler and Smith County for free land.

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We don't have free land. We're not going to write you a check, but what we're going to offer you is good government that's fiscally conservative.

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You're going to have a stable tax rate. You're going to be in a safe community.

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Public safety is we invest a lot in public safety and we invest in our public schools.

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Public safety and public education are the two things that drive economic development in the community more than anything and we do very well there and more and more companies are choosing to go to communities where they feel they can attract a workforce.

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A quality workforce and develop a workforce Right.

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Of course, with UT Tyler and Tyler Junior College we can provide that ongoing pipeline of talent for those companies, and for that you've got to have a place where people want to live.

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Thanks for listening as UT Tyler Radio connects with Scott Martinez, CEO and President of the Tyler Economic Council.