2 min read October 2022 — The Seguin Economic Development Corporation (SEDC) has worked to promote Seguin as a premiere destination for businesses looking to expand or relocate. Invest: spoke to Executive Director Josh Schneuker about some of the company’s recent highlights, key legislation and regulations related to businesses and the SEDC’s outlook.
What are the biggest highlights and milestones of SEDC?
One of the biggest wins we’ve had over the past year is our recently announced deal with Maruichi Stainless Tube Texas Corporation. They are going to be investing $75 million in a new manufacturing facility where they will be producing stainless steel tubes and pipes for customers in the semiconductor industry. Maruichi will create over 100 well-paying jobs here in Seguin. One of the most exciting aspects of this project is the opportunity it potentially creates to help us attract more business from the semiconductor industry, as well as companies that support the operations of these large semiconductor fabrication facilities that are under construction throughout Texas and the United States.
What should businesses and investors keep in mind about Seguin when communicating and building relationships with the local business community?
One thing that we don’t take for granted here in Seguin is the relationships that we have with our existing industry. Our companies see the value in working together to recruit new manufacturers to the region. It creates a great collaborative environment for building a stronger workforce development ecosystem and helping to recruit specific talent to the area related to manufacturing. We’re fortunate we have relationships where our companies step up to help us market Seguin as a premier destination to do business.
What are the biggest shifts that you are seeing in budgeting and fiscal prudence?
The SEDC is investing more of our funding into infrastructure projects. You have to invest in infrastructure to accommodate the growth we are seeing and that comes in the form of roads, water, wastewater and electric facilities. We have been more involved in allocating more of our financial resources toward infrastructure projects to support new and expanding business enterprises. Infrastructure is a huge component of site selection and helps ensure that our existing companies are able to grow. It is always better to be proactive than reactive when it comes to investing in infrastructure.
What key legislation or regulations are you keeping an eye on that may have an impact on your businesses and the community?
A new legislative session is going to get started in 2023, and one of the most important pieces of legislation that we are tracking is the future of Chapter 313 Value Limitations. This is a very important economic development tool that is leveraged for economic development projects with significant capital investments and job creation. The program sets value limitations on school district property taxes for qualifying economic development projects. The school district tax levy makes up the largest component of a property tax bill. This program has played a key role in landing large economic development projects to Texas. Here in Seguin, we leveraged Chapter 313 to recruit Caterpillar. Without Chapter 313, the Caterpillar project might not have come to fruition, and the economic landscape of Seguin would look very different. Chapter 313 is set to expire at the end of 2022, so we are hoping that the legislature will make it a priority to re-establish the program in 2023. It’s vital to the economic competitiveness of the state of Texas, especially to secondary and tertiary markets like Seguin.
Where do you see the greatest opportunity for economic development in the region right now?
The greatest opportunity for economic development right now in the region is to capitalize on the growth of the automotive, battery, and semiconductor industries. Our prospect pipeline has never been fuller, and projects tied to these industries make up a large part of that pipeline. With Toyota, Navistar, and Tesla all within a 60-minute drive time from Seguin, the automotive and battery sectors will continue to vet the Seguin region for potential investment opportunities. Obviously with all the growth of the semiconductor industry in the Austin region, and approval of the CHIPS Act by the federal government, we continue to see prospect and project activity grow. The spinoff effects from semiconductor projects like Samsung are massive. There is a whole supply chain ecosystem that follows the development of a new Semiconductor Fabrication Facility. We are actively engaged in pursuing projects in that space and have already seen success, specifically with the recent announcement of Maruichi to Seguin.
What is the biggest challenge that the SEDC is facing?
Our biggest challenge is trying to recruit retail to the city of Seguin. We’ve been very successful in recruiting some of these bigger companies and primary job-creating industries, however, the retail growth has been a bit slower. The residential development in Seguin hasn’t slowed down, which is a positive factor when working to recruit retail. Though the progress has been slower than we want, we’re slowly but surely making progress. I’m very optimistic going into 2023 that we will see new retailers and new retail development come to Seguin.
What is your outlook for the next three to five years for the city of Seguin?
Seguin is going to remain incredibly active. Even with the economic uncertainty that we’re going through right now things just don’t show any signs of slowing down here in Seguin. We’re continuing to see a record amount of residential development. Our prospect pipeline has never been fuller. We’re working on more active projects right now than we ever have. We have to continuously be looking at how we improve the infrastructure to accommodate our growth. Even looking further out than three to five years, how do we activate other areas of the city for economic development opportunities? We are looking further east, toward State Highway 130, to start planning for long-term infrastructure investments that we hope will stimulate other economic development activity in Seguin and position us for additional long-term success.
What are your top priorities moving forward?
One of our top priorities is developing a workforce development ecosystem that will support our existing manufacturers. We have officially established a new chapter of the Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education (FAME) here in the Seguin region. The new chapter will be called Texas FAME Lone Star. It’s a two-year apprentice program where students are sponsored by a local manufacturer. Students will split their time between work and school, ultimately earning an Associate Degree in Advanced Manufacturing Technology. We are very excited to announce that Texas State Technical College (TSTC) will serve as the educational provider for Texas FAME Lone Star. TSTC has been wanting to serve our region for some time now, and FAME is the first step to get them here. We hope that TSTC will be able to diversify their educational offerings beyond FAME over the next several years. There has been a lot of time and effort put into establishing Texas FAME Lone Star. We are very close to getting the program off the ground and hope to take the first cohort of students in August 2023.
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