Delray Beach to hire two consultants for targeted economic development outreach
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Summary
City Manager Moore said April 7 the city will engage BusinessFlare and Grip LLC for a focused economic development plan and marketing campaign, funded from the economic development fund; commissioners asked about procurement and the $124,000 total cost.
City Manager Moore said the city will engage two outside consultants to jump-start a targeted economic development effort, with the city paying roughly $60,000 to BusinessFlare and about $64,000 to Grip LLC and funding both contracts from the city's economic development fund.
The presentations came at an April 7 Delray Beach City Commission workshop where consultants described a tightly targeted approach to business attraction aimed at matching Delray's limited available space with firms that fit the city's character and talent base.
Moore introduced the topic as an outgrowth of earlier direction and follow-up meetings and said he has authority as city manager to execute the agreements. "Two contracts, obviously: one with BusinessFlare which will be just shy of $60,000 and the other for the marketing side with Grip at about $64,000," Moore said, adding both would be 100% financed via the city's economic development fund.
Savvy marketing and a short, implementation-oriented plan were central themes of the two consultant presentations. Craig Abernoff of Grip LLC said the marketing work will be "data-driven," focusing outreach on the specific decision-makers and industries that best fit Delray Beach, and will produce pitch materials staff, brokers and partners can use. "We're not guessing. We're not marketing broadly. We're going to be following a very data driven road map and targeting the exact businesses that have already been identified as the best fit for the city," Abernoff said.
Kevin Crowder, founder of BusinessFlare, described an approach he called a "respectful reality check," focused on a small set of high-impact actions that can be implemented quickly. "What are the 3 things you can do in the next 90 days? What are the 3 things you can do in the next 180 days to move forward?" Crowder said, explaining the firm's emphasis on converting inquiries into site visits and final decisions.
Commissioners welcomed the practical framing but asked for details on cost and procurement. One commissioner asked how the firms had been selected and whether the process followed typical municipal solicitation. Assistant City Manager Jeff Horace said staff reached out to roughly 10 firms, received three responses for the marketing engagement and two for the planning work, and considered those responses in selecting the teams. "We reached out to, I believe it was somewhere in the neighborhood of about 10 firms that could handle each one of these," Horace said.
Moore said staff will present the necessary budget adjustments to make expenditures eligible and that he intends to move quickly to execute the contracts. He described the work as important to making Delray visible to decision-makers and to converting interest into actual business investments.
Next steps: staff will finalize contract language and budget eligibility steps; the commission will address the budget adjustments later in the meeting process. The consultants said they will stand by to answer follow-up questions and begin work once agreements are in place.
