The Aurora City Council on Tuesday approved an amendment to the agreement between the city and the Aurora Downtown group.
The council voted 11-1 to change the agreement between the two entities so instead of a year’s notice to terminate the agreement by either side, it would take only 90 days.
Aurora Downtown is made up of downtown business and property owners and regulates the money collected by Special Service Area 1 downtown. The organization uses the money for development, marketing, management, promotion and improvement of the property included in the downtown special service area.
The Aurora Downtown Board of Directors approved the amendment in October.
City officials said the amendment would make it easier for Aurora Downtown to merge with three other organizations to pool their economic development programs and resources for the city.
That new organization, known as Elevate Aurora, would merge Aurora Downtown with Invest Aurora – a not-for-profit economic development arm of the city; the Aurora Regional Chamber of Commerce; and the Quad County African-American Chamber of Commerce.
The organizations would continue as they are, with the merger affecting their economic development components.
The City Council in October approved $3 million in funding for the new organization. The funds are seed money, called a Transformation Fund, for the new organization.
The merger, approved by the boards for all the member organizations, was done to better cooperate between the organizations for economic development – business recruitment, business retention and redevelopment.
The original proposal was to fund the new organization, which will have a parent called the Aurora Regional Economic Alliance, with $5 million.
But after discussion, aldermen changed the funding to $3 million as the seed money, with another $2 million if the organization comes back after it is more developed, and has a budget, and shows what some of the original $3 million went for.
The merger idea came out of a June study, titled “The Ecosystem Review and Best Practices,” that surveyed six business-oriented organizations – in addition to the four that are currently part of the merger, it also included the Aurora Regional Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Aurora Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.
After the study came out, all six organizations took part in discussions about the fragmentation, and exploring the idea of consolidating their efforts. By the middle of summer, the boards of the Aurora Area Chamber of Commerce, Aurora Downtown, Invest Aurora and the Quad County African-American Chamber of Commerce had voted to consolidate.
The funding comes from part of a settlement the city received from Cyrus One for building a new data center campus on land near the Eola Road interchange with Interstate 88 once seen as a place for economic development for the city.
The area has now become a data center area, and the city negotiated the $16 million settlement in lieu of other kinds of economic development in that location.
The new organization will have a board of 13 people – five chosen by the mayor and two representatives from each of the four organizations – to run the organization.
There would be a larger, overall advisory board made up of all the existing boards of the four organizations.
Goals of the new organization could go toward developing small, minority- and women-owned businesses; advancing workforce initiatives; innovation and entrepreneurship; promoting Aurora’s downtown; and economic development partnerships with the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development at the city.
