Raise the Bar

Raise the Bar is Missouri Partnership’s Capacity Building program. During FY 2024, our team proceeded with activities, and we have seen significant positive activity due to the efforts. 

Raise the Bar has three core components:

1. Train: Missouri Partnership provides one-on-one training for community partners to help them respond more effectively to projects.

2. Assess: Communities receive direct feedback and valuable input from nationally active site location consultants.

3. Compete: Compete was created to ensure Missouri stays as competitive as possible by identifying and securing sites for future projects.

A common setback in economic development across the U.S. is the lack of industrial sites. In FY 2023, Missouri Partnership emphasized the Compete program to address this issue. We partnered with Global Location Strategies (GLS) to identify highly competitive industrial sites. The sites are classified as Premier or Mega sites based on acreage.  

We believe Compete has four components: Identify, Control, Improve, and Market. 

In FY 2023, Missouri Partnership primarily focused on the initial step of identifying the sites. As we transitioned into FY 2024, local communities put significant efforts into controlling and improving these sites, a function we view largely as a local effort. Simultaneously, Missouri Partnership proactively submitted many of these sites for active projects, even before a comprehensive marketing plan was fully developed. The response to these submissions exceeded our expectations. We have seen increased interest in several Premier and Mega sites, with many sites receiving multiple virtual and in-person visits. Notably, some sites have progressed to the point of receiving formal documentation from clients, including options and Letters of Intent to acquire the properties.

While the primary goal of the Compete program was to identify large industrial sites, it also proved beneficial for local communities who participated in both virtual and in-person site visits. One partner emphasized the immediate impact, noting “It was a very worthwhile exercise for us to go through and actually came at the perfect time, as we were asked to give a virtual site tour with a real prospect exactly two weeks later.”