At the Texas Economic Development Council (TEDC) State Conference in San Antonio TX, the City of Saginaw was nominated and awarded a Community Economic Development Award of Merit for outstanding achievement in Community Economic Development. The City of Saginaw was recognized in the Business Retention Category for their successful Building Improvement Grant Program. The awards were presented at the TEDC’s 2022 Annual Conference on Thursday, October 20, 2022.

Southern Saginaw and the Overlay District needed a dose of Urban Regeneration.  Urban regeneration is defined as “the attempt to reverse that decline by both improving the physical structure, and, more importantly and elusively, the economy of those areas”. The Saginaw City Council was committed to using public money (Building Improvement Grants) to do just that…to pump prime investments into an area providing significant and measurable benefits.

To date, twenty-six (26) grants totaling over $106,224 have been awarded by the City of Saginaw with over $425,113 of improvements made by the business owners. Not only was this a 400% return on the City of Saginaw’s investment, it also significantly helped the facility appearance and atmosphere in Southern Saginaw.

Nominees were judged on five criteria: innovativeness, transferability, community commitment and leverage, measured objectives, and secondary benefits.  The City of Saginaw competed in the category with other municipalities of a population 20,001 to 50,000 citizens.