FAYETTEVILLE -- Chung Tan, 59, is in charge of attracting cool stuff for the city.
Tan, who spent 10 years with the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce as its chief economic development officer, has been hired by the city for a new position, business development manager, in the Department of Economic Vitality.
Web watch
To learn more about the city’s Department of Economic Vitality, and read monthly reports from the Chamber of Commerce and Startup Junkie, go to:
bit.ly/fayeconomicvitality
It will be Tan's responsibility to entice the best in the world of retail to set up shop in the city, said Devin Howland, the city's economic vitality director. Retail means not just shopping, but restaurants, hotels and mixed-use developments of commercial and residential, Howland said.
In November, the City Council decided to use $100,000 out of the general fund budget and put it toward the new position. The plan would have the position evaluated after a year. Howland said at that time that whoever was hired would be in close contact with retailers and the developers and lease agents associated with them.
The hiring is part of the administration's goal of expanding retail efforts, Howland said.
A recent example of what that means is Juice Palm, a cold-pressed juice bar founded in Northwest Arkansas, that is planning to open a second location on Dickson Street.
"When you start being proactive at something, and you start not hoping it comes but actually pursuing it, the workload you're putting back on yourself is enormous," he said.
As such, Tan had a stack of about 20 projects on her desk when she started earlier this month.
Tan said she couldn't say much about the projects. When such proposals start, the city and the involved parties enter into a nondisclosure agreement, she said.
Tan said she's spent most of her first days on the job figuring out what to prioritize.
"Each one of them is in a different stage," she said. "Some are very preliminary, and then some we've already identified potential challenges."
The Chamber of Commerce has been conducting economic development services for the city since 2009. The city adopted a new economic development plan, Fayetteville First, in 2015. A year later, the city entered into a $180,000 contract with the chamber to cover business retention and expansion, retail, workforce training and other aspects of economic development.
The city also entered into a $150,000 contract with Startup Junkie to foster entrepreneurial growth as part of the overall plan. Establishing the Department of Economic Vitality and hiring Howland in 2017 served as the third leg of the plan.
Howland's salary is $91,624. Tan's is $88,004. Between the contracts with the chamber and Startup Junkie, and Howland's and Tan's salaries, the city will have put a little more than $509,000 toward economic development on an annual basis.
Last fall, the council reconfigured the scope of the chamber's contract to focus more on business retention and expansion. Rather than having the chamber do a lot of things a little bit, Howland recommended that it refocus. Howland took on retail and workforce development.
Howland was the only employee of the Economic Vitality Department. The retail work proved to be consuming, Howland said. With Tan hired, Howland can devote most of his time on the city's workforce development plan, he said.
"I have someone who is one of the best economic developers in the country, in my opinion, sitting on the other side of this wall, who I don't have to worry about," Howland said.
The search for a business development manager took eight months over two postings. The job originally was posted as a business recruitment specialist and received 39 applicants. To get more applicants, especially those with some degree of experience in how government operates, the job was reposted under the title business development manager and had a revised description. That produced 67 applicants. Tan was among them.
Filing the job was a decision the city did not take lightly, Howland said. Tan, like Howland, is a certified economic developer through the International Economic Development Council. There are about 10 people in the state with such certification, and it's rare for a city to have two, Howland said.
Tan also is an economic development finance professional, a designation from the National Development Council. Few people in the United States hold both titles, Howland said.
Those two certifications, plus Tan's 19 years of business development experience and a decade working and living in the city, made her the perfect candidate, Howland said.
Steve Clark, president of the Chamber of Commerce, said there are no hard feelings now that Tan has switched teams, so to speak.
"Chung is a first-class professional and a first-class person for whom I have the utmost respect and regard," Clark said.
Tan said her new role will have her chasing smaller, but equally as important, fish. In her previous position at the chamber, Tan helped secure large spaces for big players, such as Pinnacle Foods, OurPharma and Supply Pike, that needed 10,000 square feet or 10 acres to operate.
In her role with the city, Tan will help prospective retail stores or restaurants find spaces as small as 1,500 square feet. She also will be able to focus on one task, digging deeper into retail than she did at the chamber, she said.
Tan said she sees her new job as continuing to work for Team Fayetteville, just under a different employer.
Metro on 07/28/2019