In 2012, the Alliance met with almost 60 Businesses to identify and capture business needs and successes.
The counties of Southwest Colorado include Archuleta, Dolores, La Plata, Montezuma, and San Juan are part of the Region 9 development district. Every year, Region 9 puts out an update on the economies in each county. More information on La Plata County; as well as the other counties can be found on the website for Region 9.
Region 9 also updates the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy, or CEDS, every five years. The purpose of this document is to identify key projects for the continued healthy growth of the region. The CEDS provides a comprehensive overview of economic conditions in each county in Southwest Colorado. This includes not only current statistics, but also population projections and the job change by industry over the last ten years. A copy of the La Plata County economic chapter of the CEDS is available here.
Every year, Fort Lewis College and Wells Fargo bank present the Southwest Business Forum. This forum looks at economic conditions nationally, across the state, and in La Plata County. The presentations are available at Fort Lewis’ Office of Business and Economic Research web page.
*Region 9 posts current economic impact/contribution studies. The most recent one can be found here.
*Fort Lewis College (FLC) also provides a number of economic impact studies for events, businesses, and industries in Southwest Colorado. A list of all of FLC’s impact studies can be found here.
Key studies for La Plata County include:
The Small Business Development Center has subscriptions to numerous databases. Together with the Alliance, we can create customized reports for businesses looking to move into La Plata County, or for La Plata County businesses to identify new market opportunities.
Economic Modeling Specialists International (Emsi) is a labor market analytics firm. They collect and integrate complex labor market data and build user-friendly tools to help you understand employment, economic trends, and training needs for your region. Emsi gathers and integrates economic, labor market, demographic, and education data from over 80 government and private-sector sources, creating a comprehensive and current database that includes both published data and detailed estimates with full coverage of the United States.
