The rural Pennsylvania Wilds region is a finalist for up to $100M in investment to grow its outdoor recreation industry, officials said Monday.
A total of 529 communities across the country, representing all 50 states and five territories, submitted applications to the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA)’s Build Back Better Regional Challenge program to compete for the transformative investments, which aim to advance regional industry clusters and aid in pandemic recovery. Only 60 applicants were selected to move on to Phase II.
“We are thrilled to make it to the final round,” said Ta Enos, CEO of the PA Wilds Center for Entrepreneurship (PA Wilds Center), the nonprofit that is spearheading the application on behalf of partners across the 13-counties of the PA Wilds. “We want to thank the many businesses and organizations who supported our Phase 1 application. There is a lot of work ahead. We are in it to win it for rural PA.”
The PA Wilds Center is the lead nonprofit for the regional strategy to establish the 13-county PA Wilds region as an outdoor recreation destination to help diversify local economies, attract new investment, improve quality of life, inspire stewardship, and attract and retain the region’s working-age population.
The PA Wilds region has seen double-digit growth in visitor spending in every county of the PA Wilds over the last decade, according to annual Tourism Economics reports released by the State Tourism Office. The last three years (2017-2019) have seen record-setting growth in visitor spending, to $1.85B, or about 11 percent of the region’s economy, supporting many small business startups and expansions in rural PA.
“We got great support letters from major employers and small businesses in the region,” Enos says.
The Center’s application proposes five projects to support this cluster: 1.) strategic recreation infrastructure development; 2.) workforce development; 3.) entrepreneurial ecosystem expansion; 4.) cluster sustainability and resilience; and 5.) profile raising to attract private investment.
The application includes six “Coalition Partners” that would spearhead recreation infrastructure construction projects and many other local organizations that would assist in carrying out the cluster development over the next five years through subcontracts with the PA Wilds Center.
EDA published details about all the finalists on its website on Monday.
“We were excited to see that ‘Equity’ was EDA’s No. 1 investment priority for this program, and that underserved rural areas are identified as part of that equity conversation,” Enos said. “Way too many rural regions in this country have been left behind. Ours is working to recover from decades of divestment and population decline. An investment like this would be transformational.”
Finalists have until March 15 to submit their full proposals. A total of 20 to 30 of the regional coalition finalists will be selected for funding in September 2022. Successful applicants will have five years to complete their projects.
