Tooele City Mayor Patrick Dunlavy, Tooele City Redevelopment Agency Director Randy Sant, and four city council members made a trip to Las Vegas in May 2007. They spent part of their time there at the annual convention of the International Council of Shopping Centers, marketing Tooele as a hot place for retailers and retail developers.
They also met with officials from Big 5 Sporting Goods -- a meeting that led a year later to the announcement that the national sporting goods retailer would build a new store in downtown Tooele.
The Vegas trip was Dunlavy's second visit to the shopping center convention, and illustrates how Tooele's mayor has taken a hands-on role in economic development in the city.
According to Russ Hammond, chairman of the Downtown Alliance, Dunlavy has been a major force in recent months in unstalling the city's downtown revitalization drive.
"The mayor is solidly behind us and has been a great influence in bringing these new businesses to Tooele," Hammond said.
The city's economic development strategy, according to Dunlavy, is to aggressively recruit retailers whose goods don't already have a presence in town. The mayor, administrative assistant Michelle Pitt, and redevelopment agency director Randy Sant have worked to identify potential targets such as retailers of electronics, sporting goods, and men's and women's clothing.
"These, along with more of the big-box stores, are the stores that the public keeps requesting," said Dunlavy.
Dunlavy said he has tried to steer relocating businesses towards the downtown area on the city's south end. The location of Walgreen's on the corner of Main Street and Utah Avenue has been a positive influence on those efforts, he said., and traffic generated by Walgreen's was a factor both Big 5 and Sears deciding to build on the property just to the north.
Other economic development efforts bear fruit years down the road, often simply because of the growth of the town.
Gold's Gym, which has announced it will be remodeling the old Albertson's, was pursued by the city even before Dunlavy became mayor, he said.
"Initially they told us we were too small of a market," Dunlavy said. "But they have seen the growth that has taken place out here in the last few years."
Dunlavy said he deliberately doesn't try to recruit new companies that will compete with existing businesses in town. However, the arrival of Gold's points up just such a conflict.
"We are concerned about a conflict with the locally owned Sweat Fitness," Dunlavy said. "Ordinarily when we seek out new businesses we look for things that we don't already have. Hopefully Sweat Fitness has been here for a while and has developed their own niche in the fitness market."
The LaQuinta Inn, to be built by the Cinema 6 movie theaters, also contacted city officials, according to Dunlavy. LaQuinta officials said they like to locate near Wal-Mart Distribution Centers, to accommodate people that Wal-Mart brings in for training. LaQuinta's market research also showed a very high occupancy rate for hotels in Tooele.
"Part of that high occupancy rate, at least on weekends, can be attributed to the Miller Motorsports Park," said Dunlavy.
The mayor also credits the city's success in recruiting new businesses to the local and state economy.
"The state and county have not been hit as hard by the recent downturn as other areas," Dunlavy said. "Retailers know we are actively recruiting new businesses to create jobs and we are still seen as a growth market."
Dunlavy said economic development often begins with disabusing business people from other parts of the country of some misperceptions.
"A lot of them think that we are just a small remote town in the Utah desert," Dunlavy said. "When we tell them about our size and proximity to the Wasatch front they become more excited about checking us out."
tgillie@tooeletranscript.com
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