Vision 2020, an improvement initiative of the Hot Springs Metro Partnership, held the project’s culminating event last week for the public after seven previous sessions with focus groups.
“This was our eighth focus group and first one open to the public,” said Jim Fram, CEO of Hot Springs Metro Partnership. “In all, we’ve had about 350 people involved in evaluating and expanding our economic-development plan.”
He said the organization, which is under the umbrella of the Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce, is in the process of evaluating information, “spreading it out and putting it into the right categories.”
The Vision 2020 plans are slated to be presented at a special meeting Sept. 29 at the Hot Springs Country Club, Fram said.
The main focus of the initiative is to bring new jobs to Hot Springs and Garland County.
“This entails expanding existing businesses, attracting outside businesses or supporting local startups,” Fram said. “By increasing our capital investment, our tax base increases.”
The biggest concern expressed at the forum was funding, Fram said, noting that funding options will be presented at the Sept. 29 meeting. Funding currently comes from development investments and some from the county and donations, but there is a need for more funding avenues, he said.
One of the key elements of
Vision 2020 that was shared at the forum is the SWAT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis. Forrest Spicher, market executive at BancorpSouth and former chairman of the chamber of commerce, presented the analysis.
A lifelong resident of Garland County, Spicher has a vested interest in the continued growth of his community, he said.
“As chairman of the Hot Springs Chamber, I became interested in how the county is doing from a demographic standpoint,” he said.
The SWAT analysis revealed that the community’s strengths lie in its tourism industry and its attractiveness as an ideal retirement location, Spicher noted. Weaknesses include the lower median household income and the lower higher-education level of residents.
“We concluded that a lot of Garland County folks, ages 25 to 44, are relocating to other communities and even out of state, and we’re having a hard time
retaining and recruiting millennials and Gen X-ers,” Spicher said.
“They are growing up here with excellent educations; then they go away to college, and then after college, a high percentage do not return home. And at the same time, we’re having a hard time recruiting that age group here for the same reason.”
Spicher added that comparisons have been completed with towns similar in size, such as Asheville, North Carolina, and Saratoga Springs, New York, to gather useful information on their revitalization efforts.
“We’ve also been looking at Oklahoma City, which had the same thing happening 20 years ago, but they’ve bounced back, revitalized and improved their quality of life,” Spicher said.
Both Fram and Spicher were pleased with the turnout at the forum.
“It was greater than expected, with about 80 people in attendance,” Spicher said. “After all of the focus groups we’ve had, it’s been a great community effort. We’ll come out of this good process with good strategies and initiatives to present to the business community and the community at large.”
Fram said, “We had a packed house with lots of people and lots of good ideas, with suggestions all over the board.”
An important factor that the SWAT analysis revealed is “we need more manufacturing jobs,” Fram said. “We only have about 2,300 in the county.”
He noted that there are good health care and aerospace industries in the community that can use further support from the business community and the community as a whole.
Fram is in his fourth year of working to improve Hot Springs economic development, but he’s no stranger to the field. He has worked in economic development for 30 years and came to Hot Springs from the Tulsa Regional Chamber of Commerce in Oklahoma. Originally from Harrison, Fram said this opportunity was the perfect way to get him back home in Arkansas.
For those who want to provide input or learn more about Vision 2020, Fram encourages them to come by the chamber office, where Metro Partnership’s offices are located, or call (501) 321-1700.