Ray: Business is booming in Mt. Pleasant

By Bryce Kelly, Mt. Pleasant News

Driving down Mt. Pleasant?s Grand Avenue, it?s hard to miss the future site of a Hibbett Sports and Dollar Tree store, and according to city officials, the current work site is an obvious indication of Mt. Pleasant?s current growing trend.

While the Hibbett Sports and Dollar Tree store is likely the most obvious sign of local business growth, Kristi Ray, vice president of the Mt. Pleasant Chamber, says Mt. Pleasant?s current upward trend in business growth and expansion doesn?t stop at the current construction on Grand Avenue.

?It?s a really good time for Mt. Pleasant right now,? said Ray, saying the Chamber is trying to focus their efforts on helping new businesses settle into the area and flourish as much as possible. ?We don?t spend much of our marketing dollars on going out and attracting retail. Retail usually follows growth, and the tremendous amount of business growth we are seeing now is a good sign for us.?

Most recently, larger, local companies like Hearth and Home Technologies, Lomont and Innovairre have all been approved for expansions or have completed expansions in the last two years. Ray also said there are set to be additional expansions coming to the city, but was unable to comment on the specifics of those.

?As all these companies, and others that I can?t quite talk about yet, start expanding, the retail will most likely follow, which is what we are seeing with stores like Dollar Tree and Hibbett Sports,? said Ray.

Taking into account the entire State of Iowa, Ray says recent reports show that not all Iowa towns like Mt. Pleasant can boast similar growth. In fact, Ray says Mt. Pleasant is also sitting rather well in terms of providing housing to accommodate the job market boom.

According to a recent state conference Ray attended, the housing market across the state is a main concern of many Iowa towns like Mt. Pleasant. However, a housing study done on Mt. Pleasant in 2014 gave the Chamber and the City of Mt. Pleasant a statistical graph of the housing needs and current housing situation in Mt. Pleasant, which Ray says is still a fairly accurate description of today?s housing needs.

?That study we did got a lot of local developers interested and looking at us, which is what we wanted,? said Ray. ?Local is key. The more local you can make housing development, that is the best way to go, I believe.?

One way in which the city is working to procure more housing, in addition to encouraging local contractors and developers to build in the city, is to work with local landlords who already have established rental properties.

?We have found that a lot of local landlords don?t necessarily like to openly advertise their properties, and that is somewhat unique to this area. They are willing to rent out their properties, but prefer to advertise by word of mouth. So, we have been working to address that issue and see how we can help those owners get people into their properties, and hopefully meet more of the housing needs as they come,? said Ray.

Ray also says that while statewide the need for housing is much more prevalent in areas besides Mt. Pleasant, the biggest demand for local housing need is for affordable single-family dwellings.

?It?s just a matter of providing quality jobs for people and also quality housing,? she said. ?That?s a big focus of ours right now, and will likely be our focus for awhile. As a Chamber, we are looking forward to meeting some of these challenges and believe that Mt. Pleasant will continue to be a place that people want to live and work.?