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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

New website will highlight economic development

Keith Vandervort
Posted 11/20/18

ELY – The Ely Economic Development Authority is pursuing a new communication tool with the goal of showcasing and marketing the plethora of programs, resources and opportunities available to …

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New website will highlight economic development

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ELY – The Ely Economic Development Authority is pursuing a new communication tool with the goal of showcasing and marketing the plethora of programs, resources and opportunities available to existing and would-be entrepreneurs in the region.

Last week, the authority awarded a contract to Richard Stuart, founder of the new Ten Below business co-working space in downtown Ely, to establish and maintain a new website designed to highlight economic development opportunities and objectives of the city of Ely. The new site, once completed, will be located at www.eeda.ely.mn.us

The contract calls for Stuart to undertake the design and development of the new website and register the copyright, at a cost of $3,800. Additionally, the webmaster services for on-going maintenance and updating of the website will cost $119 per month. “This part tends to be left out, and many times a new website is built and once it is launched, there is no thought to maintaining it,” he told members of the EEDA on Nov. 13.

Stuart based his proposal on solving a problem the city of Ely has had for a number of years with presenting economic development assistance to the business community.

“The non-profit group, ‘Ely Area Development Association,’ has introduced confusion into the market and they are not representational of the EEDA or the work that is being done to support the economic development goals and objectives of the city,” he said.

Stuart indicated his website design will include clean layouts and strong use of photography. “We scoured economic development sites across the country to gain insight in terms of what they are doing well, and what we can improve upon so we can take those best practices and put those forward for (us),” he said.

He said he is looking forward to highlighting economic success stories, available resources, partnerships and collaboration across the region, utilizing testimonials, and makeingcontact information easy to access in order to “tell the story of Ely.”

Ely Clerk-Treasurer Harold Langowski said initially it was difficult to get anyone interested in designing the economic development website for the city. “From my point of view (Stuart) has a really good handle on what we are looking to do,” he said.

The new website will also add other similar internet addresses to directly forward interested web users to the city’s officialssite, Stuart said.

Social media may be a facet of the new website project to generate interest about various projects in the works around town, including providing access to high-speed Internet, according to Langowski.

With the approval of the proposal, the next step is to schedule a kick-off meeting to review research and define the “information architecture” or presentation style of the included information. Stuart said he hopes to “hit the new year running” with the new economic development tool for the city.