By: Curtis Englehart | Executive Director

Originally published in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel (May 19, 2024)

Earlier this month, we shared that the Grand Junction area will soon expect a new delivery: Amazon’s last-mile facility. This new 38,000-square-foot site is being constructed near the regional airport. Launch plans for this delivery station are in the early stages and construction is underway.  The last-mile facility will power the final stretch of Amazon’s fulfillment process by enabling fast, everyday delivery directly to customer’s doorsteps.

GJEP is thrilled about the expansion of Amazon to the Grand Junction area. However, the announcement was met with mixed sentiments from our community, ranging from excitement about more jobs coming to the region and faster deliveries to questions about how the distribution giant’s presence could impact our future.

Our community’s growth hasn’t been a secret for a while now. The region continues to gain national recognition: The New York Times named Grand Junction in the top 52 places to visit, USA Today highlighted Downtown Grand Junction and ranked the city as one of the best places to move to, and Money.com called Fruita one of the best places to live in the United States. And with the incoming investment of recognizable brands, including Costco and Amazon, it’s safe to say that the greater Grand Junction area is now on the map.

While projects like Amazon and Costco may not be GJEP’s typical focus areas for business attraction into the region, they significantly boost regional investment and job creation. Both projects will create new employment opportunities, stimulate our economy, and create a positive ripple effect beyond same-day deliveries and wholesale prices. The investment of these well-known brands also signals to other companies in various industries that investing here is a wise decision for their relocation or expansion.

For years, our community has posed the question, “What do we want to be when we grow up?” Our community is the largest metropolitan region between Denver and Salt Lake City. The region possesses everything needed to thrive: accessibility through proximity to I-70 and a regional airport, a strong workforce and talent pipeline through CMU and CMU Tech, relative affordability, and community leaders focused on long-term vision and vitality. We have always been poised for growth, and that growth is coming to fruition.

Growth presents its own challenges, but stagnation results in declined economic activity and quality of life. Our community once had a less-than-positive reputation that has since been buried. Through the work of our partners, that stigma has shifted, and now this region is bustling with tourism activity and people are proud to live here.

Over the years, Mesa County has demonstrated its economic resilience and adaptability. GJEP was formed in 1984 to support industry diversification within Mesa County after what was coined “Black Sunday” when our community witnessed the oil and gas industry collapse. During that time, we saw record unemployment and a mass exodus of our labor force. For those of you who remember that period, it was a dark time, and it’s taken decades for our economy to recover.

Since then, we’ve learned the importance of not putting all our eggs in one industry basket and have seen incredible economic diversification over the last several years. Our economy has grown into a thriving community, attracting new investment and employment opportunities.

Due to past and present economic development efforts, Mesa County has transitioned from an up-and-coming community to a fully established and thriving region. Economic development is multifaceted and requires the buy-in and vision of our entire community. As our community grows, so do the job opportunities, recreation possibilities, and services available.

As our community graduates into its next development stage, there is much to look forward to. We have seen new housing units and community services come online, the restoration of historic buildings, plans to revitalize previously disadvantaged areas, and increased activity in emerging industries, including manufacturing, aerospace and aviation, tech, and cybersecurity, to name a few.

At GJEP, we work alongside our community, including the public, private, and economic development partners, to collectively move the needle. Not only is our team actively working with several prospects seeking to relocate or expand here; we are also working on innovative projects that will positively affect our economy for years to come.

Projects like our Tech Hub initiative—the Resilient & Adaptive Cyber Protection of Industrial Control Devices & Systems (RAPIDS)—in partnership with Mesa County, Colorado Mesa University, GroupSense, and the Colorado River District. Through RAPIDS, Mesa County will see a cyber center of excellence designed to bring world-class industrial controls to critical environmental and national security infrastructure.

Our region will use the RAPIDS initiatives to focus on the secure enablement of efficient and sustainable water management for the Colorado River while also serving as a laboratory for defining security systems and developing workforce capabilities to bring modernized networked controls to critical infrastructure nationwide.

RAPIDS will be a primary job generator and a critical investment in our economy for years to come. We recently secured $625,000 in seed money for this project which is the first of many building blocks to ensure the sustainability of this project.

For more information on recent developments, please visit www.gjep.org. To learn how you can partner with us or explore resources available to your business, please contact me at curtis@gjep.org.