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Economic Development Plan for Arden Hills Finding itself at a crossroad for growth, the City of Arden Hills engaged the services of DeSCo in the summer of 2006 to create a strategic plan for the City. This plan of action was to be developed not from a point of isolation but from an interactive process involving substantial community input. Using our proprietary methodology developed through creating strategic plans for communities throughout the United States, DeSCo went to work in Arden Hills to develop a strategy for economic development success. The final stage of our engagement resulted in the development of this strategic plan. The plan is segmented to address the five cornerstones of economic development: • The Organization • The Product • Business Retention & Expansion • Marketing the Product (Attraction) • Workforce Development Every economic development organization is pressed with deciding how many of these five cornerstones their budget and staffing will allow them to address. Once they determine which cornerstones they can approach they are then faced with determining the relative emphasis to be placed on each cornerstone. In the formulative stages of the organization, much more work is required in the first three cornerstones; Organization, Product and Business Retention & Expansion. More mature programs are able to shift their resources toward the latter cornerstones; Workforce Development and Marketing. At its current level of funding the City of Arden Hills can only address three cornerstones well. Based upon the needs discovered during our strategy sessions we would recommend those to be the product, organization and BRE. Strategic Plan for Economic Development Page 11 of 23 Draft—Subject to Approval and Adoption