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Tulare County EDC outlines leads, site-selection tools and Porterville results
Summary
The Tulare County Economic Development Corporation told council it manages a site-selection platform, marketing drip campaigns and SEDS reporting and that Porterville accounted for responses on roughly 46% of applicable project leads last year.
Erica De Oliveira, president and CEO of the Tulare County Economic Development Corporation, told the council on Aug. 19 that the agency focuses on recruiting businesses and supporting municipal economic development through marketing, a GIS-based site selection tool and administration of the county’s SEDS (Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy) document.
De Oliveira said the EDC’s marketing campaign produced nearly 40,000 email impressions with a roughly 14% open rate and a high click-through rate to featured properties. The EDC also maintains an Esri-backed GIS property platform with zoning and utility layers, 3-D speculative building rendering capability and quarterly featured property promotion for member jurisdictions. She said the governor’s office of business and economic development (GO-Biz) funnels many leads to the county’s EDCs rather than directly to cities.
De Oliveira gave a fiscal-year summary: 41 projects opened, 22 RFIs distributed, 17 proposals prepared, 136 sites submitted across the county and two site tours; the county was shortlisted 12 times. She said Porterville staff responded to 46% of applicable project leads and that five Porterville sites were used multiple times across 11 proposals. The EDC reported being shortlisted and doing “data assists” for projects and said it plans to enrich industry-cluster mapping and pursue additional grant opportunities.
Council members asked about concrete results for Porterville; De Oliveira cited a 2022–23 industrial/warehouse location by a Madera-based company as an example of a successful assist and emphasized the time lag between lead generation and project openings. She also said common business concerns for the region include energy cost and utility infrastructure, but that Porterville’s freight access and affordability remain selling points. The EDC asked councils to keep infrastructure projects visible in the SEDS report to preserve eligibility for certain federal EDA funding.
