CORRY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
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Mission Statement
Impact Corry is reinventing rural through community, economic, and civic development and by doing so growing Erie County's capacity to manage change to a positive outcome. Impact Corry is a catalyst of transformation to position Corry - and our rural region - for growth in opportunities, prosperity, and civic engagement through radical collaboration and ecosystem building.
About This Cause
As a Rural Development Hub Organization, Impact Corry serves as a liaison, listener and an agent of change to promote region-wide community development and economic growth through informed decision-making. Most recently, Impact Corry led the planning process led by Charles Buki (of czbLLC) to create the Corry Community Strategic Plan. The plan focuses on the Five Big Things Corry must get right. If Corry fails to get these five big things right, nothing else matters. If Corry succeeds, we have a chance to turn things around. Guided by our tour 2021 community strategic plan, Impact Corry works to ramp up our connectivity, activate our city center, revitalize our housing and neighborhoods, link and improve our green spaces, and strengthen our city's balance sheet. CONNECTIVITY In the area of Connectivity, Impact Corry is working to make our county and region thrive by helping rural communities find their place in the innovation economy before they are locked out. For two years we have been working with Corry area champions, regional advocates, state nation and international leaders in technology and economic development to plan our way forward. To date we have: -Raised $250,000 to bring a WiFi provider service to Corry and provide free WiFi in our downtown core. -Raised $2,249,949 to implement a universal gig fiber network throughout the city with a fiber optic node connected to a tier one carrier. -Committed to a gig fiber network buildout throughout our school district, as well as helping surrounding school districts connect their students. -Raised $4.77M for the adaptive reuse of the former Corry memorial hospital. An 88,000 square-foot facility that was previously a white elephant in the community without a suitable purpose for redevelopment. The Corry Area Technology Center & Hub (CATCH). CATCH is a technology center and a whole life learning center in the disciplines of coding, technology incubation, and entrepreneurship. CATCH will host a clean room, colocation, co-working, media production and distribution facility, offices, amenities, educare, and classrooms. This whole-life, inclusive, and mentored education/workforce development strategy has the potential to ends generations of poverty and exclusion in our area through live and virtual education. We are already collaborating with a 13-county partnership to launch this strategy further, with each county becoming an innovation economy hub of learning and workforce development aligned with local economic development goals, all working in partnership to advance regional and statewide innovation goals. HOUSING AND NEIGHBORHOODS To date, Impact Corry has created and had adopted the Corry Blight and Revitalization Plan and established a ten-year 100% residential LERTA. First round Renaissance Block home beautification grant funds of $190,000 invested in Corry have returned a home-owner investment match of $256,882.88 local match and improved 42 homes at an average investment of $10,400 per home. This year, we are finishing a second round of the program with grant funds totally $127,500, and are working to $280,000 more to meet program demand. Working with the Erie County Land Bank and the Corry Neighborhood Initiative 24 homes blighted beyond repair have been removed and the properties remediated. We are working with the City of Corry on improving code enforcement policies and believe those improvements will be adopted by year's end. We are also developing a funding plan for a block-long mixed use apartment and loft plan for first block of North Center Street, which will offer up-scale rental housing options for veterans, active adults, and young professionals. IMPROVE & LINK OUR GREEN SPACES In 2022, Impact Corry built the first-ever expansion of the Erie to Pittsburgh Trail (EPT) within Corry City limits – 800 linear feet - as well as a 600 linear feet trail spur from EPT to Mead Park with two national funders Athletic Brewing and AARP. Impact Corry created a 3.17- acre park with teaching pollinator gardens in Miggie's Pollinator Meadow and Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary. In 2023, we will be building an additional 1,400 linear feet of Erie to Pittsburgh Trail. All trails will feature specially-designed trail benches featuring the work of regional artists, locally-designed and built trail signage. In 2022, champions completed all additional trail ground-truthing and budgeting to support funding efforts in 2023 to complete the 9 miles of EPT Trail expansion and 9.4 miles of EPT feeder trails included in our plan. In the past year, Green Spaces champions have also made two presentations at the 2021 Pennsylvania Trail Summit and provided advisory trail work with LECOM Health Corry Memorial Hospital, East Branch Trail advocates, and Corry to Clymer Trail advocates. ACTIVATE OUR CITY CENTER These champions have enabled the facade renovation of 14 downtown core businesses (with waiting list of 24) through and grant investment of $154,000 returning $178,000 in local match. Would-be facade renovators will get a boost through access to historic tax credits as Corry's downtown became listed as a historic district on the national register of historic places on April 4, 2022. City Center is showing the depth of local arts investment by winning the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Creative Communities Initiative award, a four-year $100,000 matched fund investment in the arts as economic drivers. City Center also launched the Climax & Corsets Innovation Festival in 2021. This annual event has innovation and arts design competitions, innovation prototype exhibits, and a job fair amidst a festival setting. City Center's largest project is the planning (and soon building) of the Corry Rails + Trails Park and trail head for the Erie to Pittsburgh Trail. This group has also worked with the Edinboro University Center for Branding and Strategic Communication to develop logos for Corry and the Corry Rails + Trail Park. A brand concept and expanded marketing strategy was developed with czb. We are currently developing streetscape and wayfinding designs and standards, and raising funds for additional functional artworks and murals. This group is also working on the development of an innovation and entrepreneur ecosystem spearheaded with the Corry Higher Education Council. Champions are also completing a property asset inventory for Corry's downtown retail buildings, with the goal of marketing and filling all available space within the next nine years. Strengthen Our City’s Balance Sheet Achieved to Date: -Champions raised the funds and participated in a Penn State Behrend Innovation Through Collaboration project with the Black School of Business to create a 5-year business plan for Corry's North Hills Golf Course. This has been completed, a golf commission has been established, members are working on plan implementation, and the commission has turned an annual $97,000 deficit into an average $210,000 profit for reinvestment locally. -Helped to move the Corry-Lawrence Airport from closed and mired in legal issues to under a new airport authority, completed an airport strategic business planning process, and is currently on track to triple the annual economic impact of the Corry Lawrence Airport (currently $4M/year) within ten years. We are working with Corry Higher Education Council to develop aviation career pathways with the Corry-Lawrence Airport as a school for pilots, aviation mechanics, and drone pilots. -Raised $400,000 through Community Project Funds to replace failing wastewater treatment facility. -Working with Streets, Municipal Authority, and City Facilities to create project development and funding plan for deferred infrastructure investment -Collaborating on City of Corry Comprehensive Planning Process -Researched and vetting 63-20 financing, which attracts private investment for infrastructure projects that may offset any need for tax increases or bond issues