Program areas at LEAP
Business attraction division- provides Economic development services and programs throughout the metropolitan Lansing region (ingham, eaton, and clinton counties). The division has a proactive business expansion, attraction and retention team that works directly with key businesses in targeted industries domestically and internationally to provide assistance and incentives that result in the creation and retention of jobs and investment in the Lansing region. This is achieved by regular communication with regional businesses, real estate site selection community, collaboration with regional municipalities and working with local university and colleges to attract and retain talent. Three projects were officially recruited and announced in 2022, including $2.6 billion in pledged investment and over 2,700 new jobs from a largescale ev battery manufacturer. The two others mark foreign direct investment successes, attracting a german company leading the industry in drivetrain testing and a unique chinese student exchange operation. Additionally, another three business expansion projects were facilitated in 2022 constituting over $581,000,000 in pledged investment and over 115 jobs created, including strong investment from the mobility sector and a new state-of-the-art building for a global leader in food safety and medical technologies. For all 6 projects, the average range surpassed $23.50 / hour, well over 200% of the alice single adult wage threshold. Business attraction conducted 100 regional site searches, hosted 11 prospective company visits, and conducted 23 retention visits. Business attraction also continued its work on better preparing vacant industrial sites for development through its $120,500 grant from the Michigan Economic development corporation to be utilized across 4 ingham county sites. In the same light, business attraction continued and then completed its epa assessment grant project in 2022, assisting property owners and prospective developers across approximately a dozen sites in conducting necessary and important environmental assessments, with 33% of these grants converting into leap prospective projects. Leap's medtech advisory group and business attraction team also completed in 2022 its eda grant for the creation of a Lansing region medtech cluster building strategy.
Site-readiness funds- in 2022, leap secured five separate Michigan build ready grant agreements totaling $3.4 million. Funds from all five grants were scoped to be spent on various site preparation expenses such as real estate assemblage fees, environmental due diligence costs, infrastructure planning costs, and various associated professional services related to properties across clinton, eaton and ingham counties. While much of the fund balance was expensed during 2022, the scope of work for these grants continues into 2023. These funds are instrumental toward leap's mission of having suitably sized real estate site options at a level of preparedness that makes our region competitive with other regions and states across the us (and world).
Business development division: through a contract with the city of Lansing and the Lansing Economic development corporation (ledc), leap manages Economic development services and programs. Leap administers and provides staffing to the ledc, the Lansing tax increment finance authority (tifa), the Lansing brownfield redevelopment authority (lbra) and four corridor improvement authorities. Leap also manages grants on behalf of the city including those from epa, medc, mdeq and doe. Additionally, leap manages a business financing loan program, faade improvement program and coordinates bond financing for major lbra, tifa and ledc projects on behalf of the city of Lansing. This contract expired on june 30, 2022, and along with it the aforementioned services and program administration.
Ultium project- in january of 2022, the Michigan strategic fund approved $66.1 million through a strategic sites readiness program (ssrp) grant agreement with leap, in which leap acts as the fiduciary and administrator of dollars scoped to support public infrastructure costs necessary in order for delta charter township to provide the ultium high volume electric vehicle (ev) battery cell manufacturing facility with water, sewer and wastewater service, and similarly for the Lansing board of water & light (bwl) to provide ultium the electricity energy required by the project. The ultium project is a $2.6 billion investment, the largest in the history of the Lansing region. The 2.8 million square foot facility being constructed adjacent to gm's Lansing delta township (ldt) assembly plant is anticipated to employ 1,700 by year five of operations. Delta township and bwl are both sub-grantees to leap under this infrastructure grant project, and an mou is in place with ultium itself as the primary end user benefiting from the new public infrastructure. Entrepreneurship & innovation team (formerly new economy division) assisted in forming 8 startup companies, follow on funding was achieved at top levels constituting $6,727,435 in investment and the creation of 74 jobs. Leap-led and leap-supported startup events were done at a high level of quality, returning in-person. Finished #4 in the entire state of Michigan in dollars awarded and number of submissions for the baf program. Three hatching pitch competitions were successfully held featuring judges from across the tri-county region. One&all program successfully launched 118 graduates since its start in 2020. The renewal for the gateway representative was submitted. Leap's contract to manage the ldfa was successfully renewed at $35,000 and a contract was created to provide the ldfa a dedicated staff person.
Entrepreneurship & innovation team (formerly new economy division) assisted in forming 8 startup companies, follow on funding was achieved at top levels constituting $6,727,435 in investment and the creation of 74 jobs. Leap-led and leap-supported startup events were done at a high level of quality, returning in-person. Finished #4 in the entire state of Michigan in dollars awarded and number of submissions for the baf program. Three hatching pitch competitions were successfully held featuring judges from across the tri-county region. One&all program successfully launched 118 graduates since its start in 2020. The renewal for the gateway representative was submitted. Leap's contract to manage the ldfa was successfully renewed at $35,000 and a contract was created to provide the ldfa a dedicated staff person.
Department of equitable Economic planning (deep) deep's strategy to enhance equitable development in the Lansing region involves a three-pronged approach of internal policy review and evolution, community partnerships and programs to enhance business ownership and Economic participation among its target groups. Some of the highlights/major accomplishments in each Area include: 1) we launched our first cohort for elevate, a business accelerator program focused on supporting black businesses with a focus on revenue, profitability an prominence. Elevate, was made possible from a grant by pnc and support from ingham county. 2) second year of our level-up progroam, which helped 27 bipoc businesses by enhancing their operational sophistication/processes and converting them from dbas to llcs. 3) formed partnerships with the Lansing regional chamber of commerce to promote the importance of dei for small businesses and corporations by launching the diversity star award, with our inaugural recipient being peckham. 4) launched new program in Partnership with city of Lansing's office of financial empowerment, small business boost, which helped 47 entrepreneurs improve their personal and business finances and credit scores, allowing them to be better positioned financing and growing their businesses.
Lansing proto/proto accelerator became the region's first physical product-focused equity investment fund. Lansing proto developed an insuretech accelerator program with key industry focused on insurance technology and digital transformation of the industry. Successfully raised the necessary capital to support the program for two years and selected three global companies to move here and participate in the program. The companies were from israel, great britain and ireland. Two of the three were awarded proof of concept contracts from delta dental and farm bureau. This rate of initial success far surpasses the usual success rates of insuretech programs nationwide. In 2021, we worked closely with farm bureau to devise innovation strategy/thesis and attract multiple potential pilots. Towards the end of the year the board decided to use 2022 as strategic year to further determine the direction and opportunities to explore.
Placemaking/talent/diversity - placemaking/talent/diversity - through leap's public art for communities (pafc) program, since 2012, the program has now invested $290,000 in a growing collection of strategically place, permanent, public art throughout the tri-county region which now includes 35+ pieces of murals, alley walks, creative bike racks, sculptures and the like. Two new communities were selected in 2022 which includes place neighborhood/allen neighborhood center and in downtown dewitt via their dewitt dda that have contributed to those running totals since 2012. They are set to unveil their pieces in summer of 2023. There will be a new pafc awardee for the 2023 year also announced then. Leap continued its diversity efforts by renewing their annual diversity and equity statement, continued dei trainings for the staff, and created many programs and assisted many people through its department of equitable Economic planning (deep), which is further detailed in the deep section."
Through a contract with ingham county, leap provides enhanced Economic development services to help optimize and align Economic development opportunities across the region creating more jobs and assist business startups and business investment.