Counties, cities, and townships are valued partners. Cultivating prosperity in the communities we serve is how we define success. Ann Arbor SPARK is proud to serve your community and provide real-time, relevant resources for whatever you need related to business attraction, expansion, and retention when you need it. Our business development team can assist with feasibility studies, review available sites for projects of any size, provide economic and labor market data and analysis, industry sector analysis, compensation analysis, facilitate connections to regional, state, and national partners, and much more. When municipalities invest in Ann Arbor SPARK, we are able to deliver specific benefits and results.
Municipal Investor Benefits
- Participation in SPARK’s public sector committee, which focuses on economic development opportunities in Washtenaw and Livingston counties and southeast MI.
- Outreach and services to growing companies located within their communities.
- The inclusion of appropriate real estate options and development of responses to requests for sites/proposals for business attraction.
- Access to regional and real estate data, demographic and business information, and the ability to leverage SPARK staff for customized research and data requests.
- Access to SPARK events.
- Consultation and deal structuring for economic development incentive programs and project management for major investment or job creation projects.
For higher-level municipal investors, Ann Arbor SPARK can provide guidance on strategic projects. This could include data, implementation of a specific economic development strategy like Redevelopment Ready Communities®, neighborhood improvement programs, marketing of high-priority development projects, or other community-focused projects.
Additional consultation services could include, but are not limited to:
- Economic development strategies
- Brief economic impact studies
- Economic development technical assistance
- Grant support and technical assistance
- EPA brownfield assistance
- Workforce and talent pipeline development strategies
- Resources for state incentive programs
- Deal structuring and negotiation
- TIF projections
- Review or development of pro formas
- Assistance with PA 198s
- Customized research and data analyses
We're Here to Help
Consider us an extension of your team — your feet-on-the-ground, local resource for checking things off of your to-do list.