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Anna staff report $4 billion in planned investment, big sales-tax jump and new retailers
Summary
City economic development staff reported developer interest and two master-planned communities choosing Anna, a projected $4 billion-plus investment over 10 years, a 30% year-over-year increase in sales-tax receipts, and a range of outreach and business retention activities at the March 6 joint ADC/EDC meeting.
In a director’s report at the March 6 joint meeting, economic development staff said two master-planned communities have chosen Anna and that the city has new developer interest that could amount to more than $4 billion in investment over 10 years.
Board president Mr. Parker said he attended BizNow’s master-planned community event in Frisco where representatives from the Telus Group — the developer of Shirley Farms — spoke about their experience working with Anna. Mr. Parker told the board more than 300 developers and realtors heard testimonials about Anna, and staff cited that Shirley Farms and related master-planned projects such as Liberty Hills and Old Prosper Partners were among recent announcements. In the director’s report staff described the combined investment potential as “well over a $4,000,000,000 investment over 10 years.”
Staff also reported measurable outreach and engagement in February: 12 real estate broker/developer meetings, 10 business-retention-and-expansion (BRE) contacts, five construction/architectural meetings, and growth in the city’s digital reach (newsletter subscribers at 2,164; LinkedIn followers up 26 to 1,778; Instagram and Facebook follower increases noted). Mr. Parker said sales-tax receipts increased roughly 30% from the previous year.
Staff highlighted recent and upcoming local business activity: the Chamber’s annual awards banquet, a career fair at Anna High School with staff outreach, and a Chick-fil-A grand re-opening and ribbon cutting scheduled for March 13 at 5:30 p.m. Staff also said the city continues business-retention work with existing owners and noted incoming large retailers mentioned during the report such as Home Depot and Walmart (no opening dates specified in the transcript).
Selena (last name not specified), economic development staff, described BRE outreach and the department’s plans to use testimonials, video content and the city website’s opportunity platform to track leads. Staff said they use analytics from their marketing vendor to measure clicks and inquiries and plan to report those analytics during regular marketing/strategy meetings.
Ending: Staff closed the report by noting active recruitment and retention efforts and said they will continue to provide updates to the board and to the city council as projects progress.
