NEWS & EVENTS

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New branding launched at Norwich Business Park.

Upon entering the park on July 22nd, nearly 2,800 employees were exposed to new signage and banners throughout the park. 

In an effort to create an exciting and refreshed atmosphere for business and visitors, Camaro Signs, Miranda Creative, NCDC and the Park businesses united to address the aged directory signs. Among the initiative, the new signs and banners were developed with a color-coded wayfinding system, that divides the park into four colorized segments. Each business, alphabetized with color-coded blocks, relates to location of the business in the park. Throughout the park, color-coded banners reinforce the location, making the visitor experience much more navigable.

In the upcoming months, banners supporting local business sponsors will be appearing. Additional sponsor opportunities are available to local businesses, so please contact 860-887-6964 for more information.

Additionally, NCDC has taken on the role of helping find the right locations for new businesses and has placed “askncdc.com” on many sign and banner locations throughout the Park. Among these are messages that promote the Park, Norwich and the benefits of doing business in the area.

 

 

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Head of Research Presents to Regional Leadership

Jeff Blodgett, Vice President of Research at the Connecticut Economic Resource Center presented his 2007 landmark white paper- Communities- Connect to Compete to regional leadership at the Spa at Norwich Inn on June 14th. Jeff’s research indicated a long standing trend of decline of 24 of Connecticut’s Urban centers and their surrounding regions. From the area of eastern Connecticut the communities of Windham, Norwich, Groton and New London are 4 of the 24 urban areas in decline. Like nearly everything in economic development, there are numerous reasons for the decline and much of it masked by other activities in the rest of the state’s economy. It seems as though one of the single most significant underlying issues is the foundation of the tax structure in Connecticut. Communities are locked into a “one size fits all” model to produce revenue through property taxes. In most communities this revenue source accounts for but a fraction of the cost to operate a community, the balance coming from special state and federal aide.

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CEO of the Connecticut Technology Council Shares Insights

See what Matthew Nemerson, President and CEO of the Connecticut Technology Council had to say to Norwich.

On Wednesday, June 9th, Matthew Nemerson, President and CEO of the Connecticut Technology Council came to Norwich for a presentation and lively discussion with a group of civic and business leaders. The title of the discussion was Innovation & Job Growth in Connecticut, Norwich and other places too. You can see Matt’s PowerPoint presentation HERE. Matt had previewed the Norwich Results page located at www.norwichresults.org/wordpress to aide in the discussion. Some of the comments from attendees were along the lines of “this was the single most enlightening presentation I have seen in Norwich!” One of the outcomes is that we will be inviting Matthew back to another event with a significantly larger Norwich and Regional audience. The outcome of the meeting for me was that though we have a long, long way to go to see Norwich nearing our objectives stated in the Norwich Results web site, our initial thinking is not so far off track. We need to build upon solid ideas with supporting data and a focus that drives our work towards flexible but worthy goals that exceed any political term of office, any career of a single individual or the life expectancy of any particular economic development program.

What perhaps made Matt’s presentation so interesting and effective was his ability to position Norwich and Connecticut into the world economy and trends. How does Norwich, New London County, the state of Connecticut or the entire Northeastern USA compare to the economic regions that are taking over the world? Through data and charts Matt illustrated how Connecticut is loosing its edge in technology at an alarming rate (see slide #18) and Connecticut is leading job LOSSES in New England Slide #19). In the end Matt asked several key questions for Norwich to address in order to be successful in the long run. You can see Matt’s questions on slide 46 of his presentation.

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Norwich Economic Development Groups Present to City Council

A broad reaching group of economic development agencies, individuals and organizations presented the beginning set of economic development strategies to the Norwich City Council on Monday, April 19th.  The presentation is an outgrowth of many months of work to illuminate the economic issues facing Norwich and strategies to deal with them.  The plan and strategies are based on the Results Based Accountability model that many state and national organizations are using to halt the politicking and bickering that sometimes causes good efforts to stop cold.  The idea is to start with the desired results and work backwards, by determining the measurements needed to gauge achievement and then establishing action plans and accountability assignments for each strategy.

The group which includes the Mayor, City Council, City Manager and several City Department heads as well as Norwich Public Utilities, Norwich Community Development Corporation, Rose City Renaissance, The Redevelopment Agency, Otis Library and the Downtown Neighborhood Redevelopment Zone and many skilled individuals.  Much of the work was aided by the firm Holt, Wexler and Farnam out of New Haven who helped to introduce intrinsic economic data on Norwich and the region and also facilitated several of the workshops.

The DRAFT Plan is available by clicking here The Presentation that was provided to the City Council is available to view by clicking here .

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Transportation Center Receives Bidder Interest

NORWICH - The City of Norwich, Norwich Community Development Corporation (NCDC), The State of Connecticut Department of Transportation, and the construction manager — The Downes Group, acknowledged receipt today of 30 bids across 4 packages for the Norwich Intermodal Transportation Center.

To encourage active response, NCDC had been conducting outreach to local, regional and Connecticut contracting firms for the past few months, drawing interest to the opportunities this $22 million project would represent. The 30 bids received by today’s deadline, were for four prime contract areas with multiple subcontracting opportunities in
the following categories:
    • Site Work with 12 bidders
    • Precast Concrete Structures with 3 bidders
    • General Trades with 8 bidders
    • Mechanical-Electrical-Plumbing and Elevators with 7 bidders

“I am very pleased with the level of interest and it looks like we have a good bid based on preliminary review at the opening,” shared Pete Polubiatko, project manager with NCDC. “The bids values were grouped rather tightly, indicating our specifications and expectation were very clear. All in all, we are very pleased with the quality and the quantity of the responses.” Next steps include a significant amount of due diligence including; scope review; DBE participation (where applicable); a comprehensive review of bid packages; followed by a series of interviews with the apparent low bidders; prior to announcing bid awards. It is anticipated that due diligence will be complete by the end of April, and construction is expected to start in June. The entire construction phase will last approximately 22 Months.

The Intermodal Transportation Center will support 9 busses, 170 cars, electric vehicle charging stations and a sustainable growth opportunity for the City of Norwich. In the near term, The Transportation Center will serve as an upgraded pulsing station for SEAT in addition; it will become a focus for opportunities to entice multiple modes of transportation including water and rail services to service the downtown area.

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