SEDC earns award for community development

Joe Martin The Seguin Gazette

The Seguin Economic Development Corporation received recognition for its success in bringing Continental Structural Plastics and United Alloy, Inc into the Rio Nogales Industrial Park in Seguin.

The Texas Economic Development Council (TEDC) recently awarded the SEDC its 2020 Community Economic Development Award (CEDA).

“We’re super excited about [this recognition],” Seguin EDC Executive Director Josh Schneuker said. “There was a lot of hard work that went into these two projects, and we were at one point working simultaneously trying to finalize the deal with Continental Structural Plastics and around the same time, we started working on the United Alloy deal and trying to put that together and make it a reality. So, it’s nice to be recognized for the hard work.”

The two companies were roped into the area through carefully developed incentive packages, Schneuker said.

“The primary component of both of those packages is going to be land grants,” he said. “The land that both CSP (Continental Structural Plastics) and United Alloy are currently building on is land that used to be owned by the SEDC in exchange for the company committing to capital investment, job creation, as well as payroll benchmarks that we were able to convey to them, and we follow up with them every year to verify compliance on those benchmarks as part of the agreement.”

The incentive packages also include partial tax abatement agreements and a grant to Continental Structural Plastics through the Texas Enterprise Fund, Schneuker said.

“The TEDC (Texas Economic Development Corporation) recognizes the impact that these projects are going to have on the community as a whole and to me that’s the most important thing of my job,” Schneuker said.

Between the two companies, more than 300 jobs are slated for the area with average salaries that exceed more than $50,000, Schneuker said.

“That was taken into consideration as well when we submitted the award, and [was] one of the things the committee looked at,” Schneuker said.

According to a news release provided by the Seguin EDC, the program recognizes Texas Economic Development member cities for their work toward bolstering the economic status of their communities through “creativity, leadership, and partnership in the achievement of business retention, business recruitment, and community improvement.”

The Community Economic Development Award committee received applications from more than 30 communities.

Those nominated were judged on criteria based on five aspects: “innovativeness, transferability, community commitment and leverage, measured objectives, and secondary benefits,” the news release read.

The nominees were broken down by population ranging from population categories of less than 10,000 to others with populations between 100,001 and 250,000.

The Seguin EDC received its nomination for the population category of 20,001 to 50,000.

“I was informed that this was probably one of the more competitive years that the TEDC has seen for nominations,” Schneuker said. “We were actually in competition for the award with Cibolo. They had submitted the Aisin [AW] transmission manufacturing project that they had worked on and secured to the region. So we’re really excited we were selected for the award.”

The recent recognition is the second time the Seguin EDC has received a Community Economic Development Award in five years, the news release read.

The previous award was received in 2016 for the Seguin EDC’s work to bring the Niagara Bottling Company to the area.

“That was my predecessor who secured the Niagara Bottling deal,” Schenuker said. “I came in and was able to be at the award ceremony. … [T]he two remaining Seguin EDC staff members from that time are myself and my business retention specialist Ashlynn [Tovar-Read]. We’re still here and working together, and now we’ve added two more to our team here.”

Schneuker said more expansion is to come for the area, and he is excited for others to see what is in store.

“We’re going to be creating more jobs in this community, which is going to continue to fuel the growth,” he said. “The next domino to fall is going to be on the retail side of things. My team have been working hard to get Seguin in front of these retailers, and they’ve taken notice. So I think there’s a lot of good things to come in the future.”

The awards presentation is set for Thursday, Oct. 7 during the Texas Economic Development Corporation 2020 Virtual Annual Conference.

Joe Martin is a staff writer for the Seguin Gazette. You can e-mail him at joe.martin@seguingazette.com

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