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St. Louis Development Corporation Executive Director Neal Richardson, right, gives opening remarks on Monday, Jan. 9, 2023, with St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones before a ceremonial ribbon cutting to open the new Northside Economic Empowerment Center on the campus of Sumner High School.
ST. LOUIS — St. Louis Development Corp. has always had a clear mission: Draw private investment and stimulate growth in the city of St. Louis. Now it’s adding image control to its responsibilities.
The agency has spent $2 million on marketing contracts that its new leader, Neal Richardson, said are meant to highlight the good that’s happening here and offset the headlines about crime and mayhem that can scare off new business.
Steph Kukuljan and other business reporters bring you insights into St. Louis-area real estate and development.
“We want to change that narrative, shift that narrative and elevate those positive stories,” Richardson said. “So when businesses are thinking about St. Louis, they’re not just seeing some of the challenges that we have, but they see some of the opportunities that St. Louis presents to them, for their businesses, for their employees.”
The $2 million in contracts have been awarded to an outside company, Kansas City-based Candid, to develop a marketing plan that includes TV spots, billboards and a new website.
Richardson has likened the marketing contracts, as well as other contracts that have also drawn scrutiny, to deferred maintenance of a house. They will modernize the agency, eliminate bottlenecks and improve production, he said.
But SLDC has faced criticism, including from Alderwoman Cara Spencer who sits on the SLDC board, for the amount of money Candid has received for work that previously fell to SLDC employees. Others have questioned the lack of transparency behind some of the contracts, and the awarding of the work to a Kansas City firm to tell the St. Louis development story.
In addition, the agency’s metrics for determining whether the money has been well spent are based on business attraction and retention — factors that other organizations like Greater St. Louis Inc. and the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership measure their success on too.
“Transparency needs to be a key component of spending tax dollars,” Spencer said in a text message.
As the city’s economic development agency, SLDC has hunted the big whales, like landing the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s new headquarters in North City. It has persuaded developers to invest here by incentivizing deals. And, slowly, it has sloughed abandoned properties off city books.
Richardson, who previously worked at U.S. Bank, was appointed executive director in 2021. His first months leading SLDC were spent assessing the agency top down, from its financial stability to its organizational structural to its public brand, he said.
He said he realized improvements were needed and sought outside firms for help. Two employees who handled marketing duties were let go.
SLDC selected Candid, a firm with experience working with economic development agencies, after a request for proposals in 2022.
Candid’s first contract that year was worth $140,000, and it was tasked with redesigning SLDC’s logo and website. In November, though, SLDC quietly approved an $685,000 amendment that expanded Candid’s scope to public relations, advertising, email blasts and the Mayor’s Luncheon, which highlights small business accomplishments each year.
Gerry Connolly, a city resident who has kept close tabs on SLDC for years, questioned the amount of money behind the amendment.
“The way the contract was renewed was troubling,” Connolly said.
Candid scored another contract in May valued at $300,000, paid for via American Rescue Plan funds, to provide marketing and public relations support for SLDC small business grants, housing development pool, and economic empowerment center, among other programs. And just a few weeks ago, Candid was awarded another contract worth $680,000. In response to criticism, Candid reduced its fee.
Recently, new billboards were erected along freeways in the city and SLDC’s first sponsored content with KTVI, “Positively St. Louis” — in which Richardson talked about new housing being built in North City — aired. More are to come.
A car drives past a billboard promoting the St. Louis Development Corp. on the corner of North Florissant Avenue and North 14th Street in St. Louis on Thursday, July 20, 2023.
Sara Freetly, co-owner of Candid, said her company has worked with over 20 economic development agencies since 2014 and that those marketing plans are about “stimulating demand for what the city has to offer.”
“While economic development objectives vary in urban, suburban and rural areas, ultimately most economic development marketing campaigns we’ve created and implemented with our clients are designed to drive new business investment, retain and expand existing businesses, create more jobs and attract new residents,” Freetly said in a statement.
It’s all fairly typical, said Jerome Katz, a professor at St. Louis University’s Chaifetz School of Business.
Economic development agencies across the country spend money on marketing, and the SLDC spending is similar to what other agencies have paid. The trouble comes when agencies spend millions of dollars on plans but don’t implement them, he said.
As for the multiple agencies spending money to promote St. Louis: That’s par for the course, Katz said. Each has its own audience to target.
“St. Louis may be poster child for disfunction but an awful lots of communities have multiple groups,” he said. “We’re not unique.”
Richardson said Candid’s work has already begun to pay off. Social media engagement between SLDC and the public has increased. Candid has introduced Salesforce, a customer relationship management platform, that has eliminated silos within SLDC and made it easier for employees to communicate with each other.
What Richardson has highlighted the most: SLDC’s new Northside Economic Empowerment Center has served 1,000 individuals and 315 businesses since it opened in January. The plan that Candid devised had SLDC utilize a grassroots effort to reach residents with posters, fliers and visiting homes and businesses — bringing resources to the people and eliminating barriers, he said.
It’s a start to what Richardson said is a new future for the city.
“That’s how we’ll really be able to see the needle begin to move,” Richardson said.
St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones speaks at an event at the Northside Economic Empowerment Center on Jan. 9, 2023. Video by Annika Merrilees, Post-Dispatch
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A car drives past a billboard promoting the St. Louis Development Corp. on the corner of North Florissant Avenue and North 14th Street in St. Louis on Thursday, July 20, 2023.
St. Louis Development Corporation Executive Director Neal Richardson, right, gives opening remarks on Monday, Jan. 9, 2023, with St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones before a ceremonial ribbon cutting to open the new Northside Economic Empowerment Center on the campus of Sumner High School.
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