YEDC discuss new website, grant

Discussion was had on the Yoakum Economic Development Corporation’s (YEDC) new website and grant incentives at the Feb. 18 board meeting.

“They are making some progress there, but I’m looking for higher resolution photos for our website,” YEDC Executive Director Genora Young said.

The board discussed the possibility of people submitting photos for the YEDC website and they will give credit to those people.

“We are also working on the industry section of the website,” Young said.

“We have all of the healthcare stuff in there. Once we get that done and some photos, we can go ahead and launch it. We want to have commercial listings for businesses and for any of the downtown buildings. I am going to contact the building owners and find out if any of them want to list their properties.”

Young explained that the website content is being drafted, and she will be reaching out local business and industry owners seeking professional quality photos to include on the site to promote the variety of existing local industries.

Photo specifications are 1mb file size and as close to a 2000px image ratio as possible. In addition to photos, local industries and businesses are asked to provide a brief summary of their business or services along with the days and hours of operation, contact information, email, and website addresses. Commercial properties, for sale or lease, in Yoakum or the extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) can be posted on the website, at no charge. For more information contact Genora Young at gyoung@ yoakumtx.gov or call the YEDC Office at 361- 407-2655.

For the grant programs, it was reported there were eight potential applicants that contacted to the YEDC in January and this past month.

“Specific interests included business startups, expansion relocations and non-profits,” Young said. “There have been several inquiries regarding the purchase of buildings. What I have explained to them is that in the past, we have assisted in that. But we would rather see an investment with vision. The YEDC board would be interested in improvements to the buildings rather than the purchase of buildings.”

The YEDC also met with the new customer service manager for Placer.ai. Placer.ai is a data collection program that assists communities with retail/industry expansion, recruitment, and events promotion and marketing.

The financial report was also presented at the meeting by Director of Finance Debbie Gray.

It was reported $25,000 was paid to Navy Tang’s new restaurant, Navy’s Place. It will be located next to YK Deli and is an expansion of that restaurant offering more Asian cuisines.