Building The Cedar City Economy: A Chat With David Johnson

To many, what's happening with the economy is a priority for how they will be voting in the upcoming election. Indeed, economic issues effect us in many ways. While we have limited influence as to what happens with the global economy, we can have some influence on our local economy.

One of the things Cedar City and Iron County is doing is to have a Economic Development Director who works to bring businesses to the area to enhance our local economy. David Johnson is that person, and he was on the radio with us recently, talking about the work he is doing to attract those operations that will benefit our community.

We asked Johnson, what's drawing business to Cedar City and he told us, “One of the unique things about Cedar City, we have a really interesting diverse portfolio of different types of businesses, everything from manufacturing and distribution to retail to our tourism side of things.”

One aspect of the manufacturing aspect of the area might be a surprise to some, according to Johnson. “I don't know if a lot of people know, but Cedar City is kind of a hub for plastics and packaging manufacturing,” he told us continuing, “one of my jobs is to recruit new business here. And of course, the first thing people always think of is retail Costco and that's part of it and I'll I'll touch a little bit on that too. Don't want to get anyone's hopes up quite yet.”

Johnson told us about EDC Utah, what he called a “quasi” government agency. EDC Utah will put out Requests For Information – RFI's – for businesses that want to know about the area and what about the area would be attractive to a certain business. In the 10 months since Johnson has been Economic Development Director, his office has worked on 24 of those RFI's. Johnson has also hosted several “sight selectors,” people who will give input to a company about possibly locating in the area. Johnson said the recent One Utah summit in Cedar City was a good opportunity to meet with business leaders.

Johnson also told us that facilities that have recently come on line will really benefit our economy. “Here in Cedar City, Iron County, we have two transload facilities, which is crucial, meaning everything else used to be trucked in, right? They come in on the ships in LA and then they be trucked in, they have to go through all that import, export and whatever regulations are out there. But now when things are shipped in, they can come direct rail here,” Johnson explained.

So, what about that Costco? “Let me give a couple perspectives. First of all, so I've recruited Costco's before in other areas that I've been in, (and) Costco wants within a five mile radius a population of 110,000. So does target. So does Sam's Club and so do a lot of these major boxes. However, it is possible to get them. One of the places that I was before, they only had a population of 28,000 and so a lot of it is about being able to tell the story of where the economic draw comes from,” Johnson said.

So you're saying, we still have a chance.

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Listen to our visit with David Johnson below.