Cedar Rapids Chamber, Priority One, Downtown District merging

Looking to present a unified voice for public policy and economic development, the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce, Priority One and the Downtown District are planning to merge into a single organization.

The boards of directors of the three business groups have signed a letter of intent to merge and appointed a nine-member "unification council" with three members from each organization to develop a formal structure, name, bylaws and mission.

While the merged organization will operate under a new name, the surviving legal entity will be the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce, which was formed in 1881 and has 1,300 members. Priority One, formed in 1986, has 250 investors and the Downtown District, created in 1996, has 126 partners.

Dee Baird, president of Priority One and interim president of the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber, will be chief executive officer of the new organization, according to the letter of intent. Doug Neumann, president and CEO of the Downtown District, is expected to serve as executive vice president.

The three organizations will take a formal vote at the end of October whether to complete the merger. If the merger is approved, it would be completed in December and the new organization would begin operating Jan. 1.

Baird said a merged entity will provide better integration of resources for economic development, stronger public policy coordination and a more unified voice for local and regional efforts.

"The work of recruitment and retention of interstate commerce companies has been a very integral part of the success of Priority One and the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber," Baird said. "We also have a role in helping to make the central business district stronger in our work. That's where the opportunity lies at a greater level than it has before."

The Cedar Rapids Area Chamber, Priority One and the Downtown District employ a total of 24. While agreeing that some duplicated positions will be eliminated, Neumann said the merged organization will have some new functions that likely will create additional positions.

"We anticipate that this new organization will have far greater public policy initiatives than the three combined organizations did before," Neumann said. "We also want to make new efforts and investments in investor communications as well as additional opportunities in economic development."

Baird said more than 250 members of the community involved in the three organizations and other groups were briefed on the planned merger. She added that the overwhelming response was to continue working toward completion of the merger.

"One of the things we heard most often was that businesses wanted to write a single check each year to support these efforts," Baird said. "Priority One concluded a five-year fundraising campaign in 2010 and we have assured those investors that their pledges will continue to support economic development."

Des Moines, Waterloo-Cedar Falls and Sioux City area chambers of commerce and economic development organizations successfully merged into single entities in recent years, producing operating efficiencies. Baird said Michael Blouin, former president of the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber who was the architect of the Greater Des Moines Partnership, was consulted regarding the planned merger in Cedar Rapids.

Cedar Rapids City Manager Jeff Pomeranz believes a merged organization will be far more effective.

"Whether it's economic development, downtown development or business development, there will be one goal: building the Cedar Rapids area economy," Pomeranz said. "It was successfully developed in Des Moines where there previously had been a lot of entities working toward similar goals.

"The Greater Des Moines Partnership has been a very successful model."

Baird said the merged organization will move into a single office space that will accommodate it in downtown Cedar Rapids.