Consultants brief Planning Commission on draft five-year Economic Development Action Plan

Consultants from TIP Strategies presented the progress of a draft five-year Economic Development Action Plan (EDAP) to the City of Fife Planning Commission on May 4, highlighting community and business outreach, a draft SWOT analysis, and next steps for plan development.

Jeff Marcell, senior partner at TIP Strategies, said the project is a seven-month planning process now a little more than halfway complete. He described the EDAP as an action-oriented plan for economic-development priorities—distinct from the city’s comprehensive plan or zoning code—and said it will focus on measurable actions, milestones and metrics that the economic-development team can use over five years.

Marcell told commissioners the consulting team and the city have convened a 21-member steering committee composed of private-, public-, education- and nonprofit-sector representatives, and that the project has included roundtables, steering-committee meetings, town halls, one-on-one stakeholder interviews and two surveys. The consultants reported roughly 75 responses to a general community survey and more than 50 business responses.

Elizabeth Scott summarized survey findings: infrastructure (especially traffic and road improvements) emerged as the community’s top economic-development priority; residents and businesses emphasized workforce and job-quality opportunities, targeted real-estate strategies, and strengthening community gathering spaces such as libraries and the transit center. Businesses similarly flagged infrastructure, regulatory uncertainty, and the need for collaboration leveraging Fife’s strategic Puget Sound location and connections to the Port of Tacoma.

From those inputs the consultants presented a draft SWOT analysis. Marcell and Scott flagged strengths (Fife’s location and demonstrated success attracting transportation funding), opportunities (linked transit investment and tax-increment/Opportunity Zone tools), and threats (limited available commercial sites and retail leakage to neighboring jurisdictions). They said the plan will recommend strategic initiatives such as a routine business-outreach program, place-making and quality-of-life investments, and a communications strategy to explain infrastructure projects and timetables to the public.

The consultants requested commissioner feedback on the draft SWOT and said they will refine that analysis with the steering committee and return draft action-plan language in two months, along with use cases and best-practice examples for potential initiatives.

Next steps: two additional steering-committee meetings (May and June) and a near-term draft action plan for review and comment.