Clearwater's new Director of Economic Development and Housing looks to build on city's momentum

Like many folks, new City of Clearwater Director of Economic Development and Housing Chris Edwards first experienced the city as a vacation destination.

“Clearwater has been an attractive community to me for many years,” Edwards says. “I’ve frequented here for vacation. I always thought it was a beautiful place, the Tampa Bay area in general, but specifically Clearwater.”

In February, Edwards returned to Clearwater full-time to lead the department focused on city priorities such as business recruitment, retention, and expansion, as well as affordable and workforce housing. Now, he sees Clearwater as an “attractive community” and “beautiful place” for businesses and vacationing visitors alike.

“What attracted me the most to this job is having the opportunity to help shape the next chapter of the city’s economic future,” Edwards says. “Clearwater is uniquely positioned. We have a community and an economy that you typically don’t think of when you think of a coastal beach community. The existing business and industry base here is phenomenal, and we can use that as momentum to build on. There’s also strong momentum and investment interest around redevelopment.”

Bringing experience to the job

Over an approximately 20-year career working in municipal and county government in Florida, Edwards’ experience includes economic development, community redevelopment, public-private partnerships, downtown revitalization, affordable and workforce housing initiatives, business recruitment strategies, incentive strategies, and long-range economic planning. He says a major focus of his career has been aligning economic development strategies with housing, infrastructure, and community redevelopment so projects benefit the community as well as business.

The Florida native has worked for Leesburg, Marion County, Tallahassee, and, most recently, as New Smyrna Beach’s Economic Development & Community Redevelopment Agency Director.

“They’ve been communities of different sizes with different economic profiles, and different industries within them,” Edwards says. “But the commonalities are the same. They’re communities that want to have an environment where businesses and residents can thrive. They all share the same goals in their own way. That’s given me a real practical understanding of how to balance growth and fiscal responsibility, quality of life, and the infrastructure to support a sustainable economy in the long-term.”

Top priorities

Edwards says over the next two years, strategic economic growth and redevelopment, workforce and affordable housing development, and positioning Clearwater for future investment will be top priorities.

“My goal is to advance those catalytic redevelopment opportunities that we have in core areas like downtown and to work with private property owners in the area on ways we can diversify our economic base,” he says. “But moreover, I want to create more opportunities for capital investment to flow into downtown Clearwater that creates jobs and encourages value-added redevelopment of underutilized properties that have been static.”

He says the ongoing redevelopment overlooking the downtown waterfront, where The Bluffs apartment tower and The Ballad hotel are under construction, gives the city momentum to build on. There are also plenty of future redevelopment opportunities, particularly the 17 properties Pinellas County plans to make available to developers as part of moving its offices out of downtown.

“That will create a unique opportunity for the city to work with the developer of those properties to usher in a new urban renaissance downtown,” Edwards says.

Beyond downtown, he says properties at major intersections along the U.S. 19 are prime redevelopment opportunities. Edwards would also like to see infrastructure and aesthetic improvements to enhance the industrial district around the Hercules Avenue corridor. He toured the area during Economic Development Week in early May and came away impressed.

“We got a lot of great companies out in that area,” Edwards says. “Some are doing business on a global scale.”

They include Monin Americas, which is currently building a new, approximately $35 million headquarters on its Clearwater campus, and GE Vernova, which is in the midst of a two-year, $5 million capacity expansion that adds 75 new jobs. Clearwater Executive Airport and its fixed base operator, FlyUSA, are also getting a brand new, state-of-the-art terminal building.

“At a time when aviation aerospace is hot in the state of Florida, we certainly want to take advantage of that,” Edwards says. “There’s some private sector interest in that.”

Edwards is also focused on expanding workforce and affordable housing to retain young professionals and talent, including health care workers, teachers, and public safety personnel.

“We’re trying to create a more affordable housing environment for those working-class individuals, making sure we’re competitive in that regard,” he says. “One challenge for employers is looking for ways to accommodate a workforce that, in many cases, is priced out of the immediate area.”

Edwards says city housing staff and all available state and federal resources will be part of the effort to grow the city’s affordable and workforce housing stock.

Positioning Clearwater for future investment is another priority. To that end, the city has identified nine primary census tracts it is vying to have designated as opportunity zones under a revamped federal program that offers tax breaks to businesses and private investors investing in economically distressed communities. The city’s candidates are in the North Greenwood community and include the headquarters of fast-growing homegrown company Yo Mama’s Foods and The Grove, a planned business village built from repurposed shipping containers.

“Those are two catalytic projects happening in just two tracts,” Edwards says.

Governors will begin submitting their nominations for opportunity zones to the federal government on July 1.

Overall, Edwards says the city is committed to working for the economic growth and vitality of the community.

“The support team in place is knowledgeable and skilled at what it takes to advance initiatives,” he says. “It’s refreshing when you come to a community that already has assets, a community that’s already invested in what’s happening here. It’s exciting to be part of a city that’s forward-thinking in all those areas.”

For more information, go to Clearwater Economic Development