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6 steps to making the Corridor stronger
Reporter: Editorial
The Path to Regional Excellence event this week at Kirkwood Community College provides the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City Corridor a unique opportunity to come together to think and plan regionally.
Just over two years ago in this space, we published the six steps to making the Corridor a stronger region. The editorial sparked some discussion, but little action. After all, it is much easier to keep doing the same things and much harder to make change occur.
We have decided to republish the six steps to spark more discussion, but also, we hope, to spark some action.
1). Create a unified destination marketing organization. Right now, the Corridor has essentially three convention and visitor’s bureaus, but what is really needed is one comprehensive destination marketing organization (DMO). This organization will help put the Corridor on the map through aggressive and strategic marketing.
2). Change the name of The Eastern Iowa Airport. Part of the marketing that the DMO will be doing is helping brand the Corridor. Changing the name of The Eastern Iowa Airport to something less geographically vague is extremely important in this effort.
3). Create a regional airport/transportation authority. Changing the name of The Eastern Iowa Airport is a start, but giving it true regional credibility can only be done by creating a regional airport authority, which would govern The Eastern Iowa Airport and the Iowa City Municipal Airport. This collaboration would show that the cities of Cedar Rapids and Iowa City are serious about regionalism.
4). Create a unified chamber of commerce. We think all businesses should belong to a chamber of commerce because of the important service one provides. But the question is increasingly becoming, which chamber should we join? Do the multitude of companies with “Corridor” in their name need to join three or four chambers? All of the things that the individual chambers do can continue, but together the regional chamber can be an even stronger advocate for the businesses they represent.
5). Create a unified economic development organization. Of all the collaborations, this one would be the easiest to implement because Priority One and the Iowa City Area Development Group have the most similar purpose: to cultivate interstate commerce companies to the Corridor.
6). Create a unified United Way. There are few organizations more worthy of a charitable contribution than the United Way. Two United Ways serve the Corridor. The United Way of East Central Iowa essentially serves all of the counties (Benton, Linn, Cedar, Iowa, Washington and Jones) in the Corridor except Johnson County, which is only served by the United Way of Johnson County. It makes little sense — in an organization that values every dollar — that we still have two United Ways.
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