The Town Council opened its annual planning retreat Feb. 9 on a high note with positive reports from Economic Development Coordinator Scott Cooper and Tourism/Recreation Supervisor Rachael Goodwin.

Cooper said the town’s association with the Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC) and the Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA) has paid off with 13 business leads from the two groups over the past year. Nine came from GPEC and four from ACA. He said three were qualified leads and all three remain active at this time.

Other recent projects completed include Fountain Hills Dialysis, which created 10 to 12 new jobs in town, and the return of Bealls Outlet department store, bringing 20 jobs to the community.

Dead Heat Brewing is on tap to open later this spring with four to 12 new jobs.

A major healthcare project is expected to announce plans later this spring with up to 100 new jobs in the community on a $6 million capital investment.

Cooper said the above information includes only the projects handled by his office. He did not include the MorningStar Senior Living facility that opened last fall, or the Park Place mixed use project now under construction on Avenue of the Fountains. Cooper said those projects developed independent of his office.

The economic development office has also been working with a couple of existing Fountain Hills businesses, Broker’s Alliance and Prevco Subsea.

Broker’s Alliance is on track for significant growth over the next few years expecting to bring in up to 80 new employees within five years. The business will need to expand its physical presence by 10,000 square feet over that time as well.

Prevco is also expanding with the addition of nautical engineers, according to Cooper.

Cooper said he wants to continue working to balance the existing workforce. He said currently there are 7,769 individuals who live in Fountain Hills who go elsewhere to work. Another 2,875 come into town from other communities to work here, and 1,263 both live and work in the community.

Cooper said he would like to reduce the number of workers who leave Fountain Hills for their job.

In summary, Cooper said over the past year there have been 50 new jobs created in Fountain Hills and more than $1 million in capital investment.

Tourism

Goodwin said a positive measure of visitors to Fountain Hills is an 18 percent increase in the hotel room sales tax from the 2014/15 fiscal year to the 2015/16 year.

She said that cannot be directly attributed to the efforts of the Tourism Department, but hopes much of it is.

The town’s tourism website, Experiencefountanhills.org had 608,051 page views from June 2015 to June 2016 with approximately 1 minute, 46 seconds per viewing session. That is an increase of 255 percent from the previous year.

Most people checking out the website are in the Valley – Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert and Tempe, but there are also visitors from Los Angeles and New York.

On Facebook the Fountain Hills tourism page received 630,253 impressions made by 386,649 separate users from June 2015 to June 2016.

Goodwin said the department is focusing on six strategic goals including communication and outreach; destination marketing and promotion; research, planning and measurement; industry education, training and education; tourism product development; and strategic alliances.

Those alliances have helped with grant funding to cover almost 76 percent of the department’s marketing budget.