Planning for Results:

A Public Library Transformation Process

Summary:

St. Charles County is very much a county in transition. We want the county to be both a pleasant place to live and to have enough of a business, commercial and industrial base to make the county economically self-sufficient. In order to continue growth St. Charles County must be prepared to encourage housing development, business development, and maintain the quality of life people have come to expect. To do this, the county's various governing bodies, myriad groups and organizations, and citizens must understand the dynamics of the area economy.

A 1997 projection cast by the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council estimated St. Charles County would reach 276,000 population by 2000 and 383,000 by 2020. Current indications are that this estimate was conservative, and that the 276,000 figure will be surpassed easily. As growth continues west and southwest, the county population center will change -- the Wentzville area is already seeing housing starts numbering in the hundreds, and has just recently begin the rapidly upward portion of the growth curve. From all indications, it seems likely that St. Charles will continue to grow for at least the next five to ten years. The table below summarized a sixty-year actual-projected population cycle.

Problems accompany growth. Traffic becomes more congested; schools are at or sometimes over capacity; the rural feel of the community is lost to suburbanization. Balancing advantages and disadvantages is the responsibility of all.

Economic development is multi-faceted. Often the term implies the quest for big development -- getting a G.M. Plant, MasterCard, etc. In reality, these are ultimate objectives and every community's dream. Surely it would be great to have large company after large company choose to locate in your area. However, it is not realistic to concentrate on only large-scale employers and facilities. Most job growth in fact results from and in companies of less than 100 employees. St. Charles county is a national leader in small business and even more so in micro-businesses of five employees or fewer.

This scale of development is directly addressed through a number of agencies and organizations in St. Charles County. For example, the St. Charles County Economic Development Council provides multiple services to business. It can help with financing through industrial revenue bonds, through federal 504 Guarantee Loans, and with revolving loans for small companies grossing less than $200,000 annually.

The Council also provides incubation services for start up entities. The 60,000 square foot facility currently provides space for 35 companies, offers common support services to all residents, and is intended to provide low facilities costs until the business is sufficiently developed to move into its own location. As a rule, start up businesses may stay in the incubator for no longer than three years. Many find a permanent location before that deadline. The EDC also works with various municipal and county level economic development agencies to attract and recruit relocating business to the county. This is a particularly sensitive area, requiring strict confidentiality, often over relatively long periods of time.

Job creation is thus a very important factor in economic development, and the St. Louis metro region has done well in increasing the jobs to households ratio. The information summarized below, taken from various sources including the Regional Commerce and Growth Association; Missouri Department of Labor; American Statistical Association; and the Work Connections, indicates:

As noted earlier, job creation is a fundamental part of economic development. At the same time however, growth is not solely dependent on jobs. Certainly there must be enough employment potential within reasonable community distance to attract new residents to the county and its communities. Even now, an estimated 65 percent of the county's employed residents commute to St. Louis City or County to work. At the same time, statistics indicate that some 20,000 residents of the St. Louis side of the Missouri River commute into St. Charles County. However, economic development also considers affordability, educational systems, access, movement, and other factors that contribute to the overall quality of life.

There is an old cliché that essentially says there is a fixed and finite amount of land. Therefore, how available chunks of ground are used is of high priority. The dynamic economy requires land for residential, industrial, commercial, and recreational use. It also requires land to support infrastructure, highways, railroads, transportation centers, utility rights of way, communication towers, and landfills. At any rate, the amount of available frontage, acreage, and space is limited, and thus a valuable resource.

Businesses establish guidelines and preference lists to determine what they require of a potential site. Among the criteria a business would consider in a location plan are utilities, water and sewer, transportation infrastructure (getting employees to and from work, and getting materials in and products out), demographics, and assuring that the "number of rooftops" in the area is sufficient to support their fundamental enterprise. Among these, assuming population sufficient to support the business, transportation infrastructure is primary. Business must have primary and alternate roadways in order to move people and products. Moreover, these roadways must be reasonably passable -- as free from congestion as possible and able to move vehicles, people, and cargo with efficiency.

This concern with infrastructure should similarly be primary in the minds of the county's political and economic leadership. Consider the difficulty with intra-county transport along the I-70; Mexico Road; First Capitol Drive; Highway K / Main Street; or Highway 94 corridors. Morning and afternoon congestion is prevalent on each of these routes. I-370 has taken on considerable traffic, but yet, studies show that the level of I-70 occupancy has continued to increase. Therefore, the Page Extension becomes even more critical to the area's continuing development and effort to increase safety, provide alternate routes to, and through the county, and to eliminate bottlenecks at overtaxed highway junctions.

As a corollary, there is a critical need to shore-up and improve arterial highways within the county. Simply transferring bottlenecks from I-70 or I-40 to the county's internal secondary roads would be non-productive. There is a need for an overpass system to facilitate movement across major roadways without having to place traffic signals, or mandate crossing multiple traffic lanes.

As infrastructure is fundamental to development, so does it spur development. The extension of road improvements into the mid and western parts of the county is creating an environment which becomes increasingly attractive to commercial development. There are strong indications toward establishing major commercial office space, some 400,000 square feet in the Weldon Springs areas; of a new major regional mall in the 40/61 - Highway N corridor; and of the continuing emergence of a high-tech corridor along Interstate 40. The Winghaven project will offer tremendous diversity in land usage, and blend many economic facets into a single location.

These developments each, in turn, have the potential for stimulating further improvements in both similar and dissimilar enterprises. With office and commercial diversification comes housing, comes supermarkets, comes hospitals and service organizations, comes schools, libraries, parks, and recreation.

Thus economic development must be considered in both very specific and very broad strokes, and requires the highest possible cooperation between developers, government, and citizens. This leads to nearly a universal truth in economic stimulation -- Developers lead; Governments follow; Voters cooperate; Nature is supreme.

Analyzing the axiom confirms its truth. Developers take initial risks, visioning what does not exist, researching project potential, and deciding whether to proceed or withdraw. Governments follow the lead of developers. Rarely does a governmental agency choose to speculatively improve property. However they will facilitate, yet control, the efforts of others to exploit opportunities. Voters support continued development by electing officials, by approving bond issues for a multitude of uses, and occasionally by refusing to go along with what developers and government think is right. Despite all, nature is supreme. Land that is unsuitable for development cannot be reasonably made suitable; land that is good for farming does not necessarily make for a good mall; flood plains may or may not be adaptable to anything other than accepting excess water.

In summary, the generic term economic development encompasses many facets, involves many parties, and affects nearly everyone. The county's continued growth seems fairly assured, yet growth and its spin-offs must be balanced to maintain an overall environment conducive to the quality of life each citizen expects and feels entitled to enjoy. There is, and will be, a great deal of opportunity in St. Charles County. How that opportunity is exploited is up to each and every citizen, official, speculator, homebuilder, developer, and idealist in the area.

Issues:

The housing boom has fed the county's development for many years. The county has changed from a rural entity, to a bedroom community for St. Louis, to a major regional economic force. What happens over the coming years when the home-building industry peaks and slows? What happens as competition for space between commercial and residential developers increases? What happens then to the overall county economy and its growth?

Is development itself sometimes growth retarding? The Wildwood and Boone's Wilderness movements insisting on large lot, single family, extremely regulated development may stifle growth. Housing developers operate on relatively small margins, and depend on volume and density to make money. Three-acre lots may not be economical as compared to placing homes on 10,000 square feet, and increasing the number of rooftops per acre.

Government control can discourage diversity and opportunity. Municipalities like single family developments, but have discouraged cluster homes and high-density residences. Homebuyers like lots of common ground, local parks, and community amenities. This regulation makes even sophisticated mixed-use developments like Winghaven difficult to bring about.

There exists the very real possibility that complacency toward the county's success will diminish its future potential. It could, for example, be easy to assume that since St. Charles County has been a national level growth leader for some 20 years, development will continue automatically or of its own

inertia. Similarly, the county's rising economic and demographic power could lead to essential isolationism, and internal view of the county as an independent entity, rather than as part of much larger statistical and demographic region.