With interest high among urban telecommuters to move to small, rural mountain locales, several local economic development groups are looking at riding the wave – with focused efforts to attract the ever-growing number of remote workers to Durango and La Plata County.
“The alliance recognizes that a certain amount of urban flight is occurring, some of it from COVID-19, some of it from other factors, but we’re seeing a number of remote workers flee urban areas to smaller, rural areas, and we want to get a ahead of the trend,” said Michael French, executive director of the La Plata County Economic Development Alliance.
Durango and La Plata County are competing against locales such as Sedona, Arizona; Bend, Oregon; and Montrose to attract remote workers, who are often highly-paid professional employees such as engineers, software developers, architects, scientific researchers and other professionals, French said.
Some of the telecommuters are not just highly skilled employees, but the actual owners of small professional businesses, another segment of the economy local economic developers have long sought to attract to the region in an effort to diversify the region’s economy, which is viewed as overdependent on tourism.
As owners of small professional firms look to move, they often bring with them a select number of other employees – creating a small satellite office – to work remotely and cooperatively with the firm’s main headquarters in urban centers.
These relocating telecommuters, the owners of small companies, are highly prized immigrants because of their ability create both support jobs and a path for eventual development of satellite offices. French said economic development officials have long sought to lure them to the region.
The city of Durango, La Plata Economic Development Alliance and the Southwest Colorado Accelerator Program for Entrepreneurs combined to apply for the state’s Rural Economic Development Initiative grant and were one of 15 applicants awarded money.
The three entities’ joint application to develop a Rural Resiliency and Recruitment project was awarded $52,947 from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs.
Elizabeth Marsh, SCAPE executive director, said the money will be used to bolster assistance that can be provided to telecommuters from the new Fort Lewis College Center for Innovation to develop a library of resources for the region’s telecommuters and to develop a recruitment plan that helps target remote workers who are most interested in moving to Southwest Colorado.
Attracting telecommuters offers advantages that mirror the mission of SCAPE by diversifying the economy by bringing in businesses that have a national footprint in sales that are outside the tourist industry.
“A focus on businesses with national market helps insulate the local economy from the ups and downs of tourism,” Marsh said. “In SCAPE, we’ve found the majority of our companies have not been significantly impacted by bad or good tourism years. They’re not dependent on a good snow year.”
Outdoor recreational opportunities in La Plata County and Southwest Colorado are important attractions, but Marsh said Durango’s growing importance as a regional economic hub is also a crucial factor.
As valuable as the San Juan Mountains are in attracting telecommuters, being a base for a regional airport and FLC also help lure remote workers.
“Not only do we have a tremendous quality of life, but we have become a regional economic hub when you blend those together, we offer an environment that’s attractive to telecommuters,” Marsh said.
French said the most logical urban areas where the Rural Resiliency and Recruitment program will first target to attract remote workers are Dallas, Phoenix and Denver – cities that have direct flights to Durango-La Plata County Airport.
City of Durango Planning Manager Scott Shine said the REDI grant will support help the city and local economic development officials better understand the dynamics attracting telecommuters. In the end, he said, the effort should bolster economic resiliency.
“The Rural Resiliency and Recruitment project aims to bring businesses and entrepreneurs to the community and connect them with resources and technical assistance,” Shine said. “The project will also track data to better understand how relocation of individuals and businesses to Durango and La Plata County impacts the workforce, housing and other aspects of the community.”
The region’s attraction to telecommuters already has begun putting pressure on La Plata County’s housing market.
French, Marsh and Shine all agree efforts to help telecommuters move to Southwest Colorado must be accompanied with increased efforts to develop more housing options, especially attainable housing.
“I don’t think you can talk about workforce recruitment without talking about housing,” French said.
He said solving regional housing issues are beyond the scope of the Rural Resiliency and Recruitment project, but the issue is perhaps the most difficult problem facing economic developers.
“One project or one entity is not going to solve our housing issues,” French said. “It will take multiple entities that come together with multiple creative ideas that we can work on one project at a time to address the problem.”
“Ultimately, we can recruit people, but if we don’t have the housing available for them, we’re not going to be successful,” he said.
parmijo@durangoherald.com
