LEDC Update
It feels like summer has started a few weeks early. Humidity is up, the mosquitos are out, and I’ve already gotten my first sunburn of the season—but at least we can see the sun! With the reopening of the state still ongoing, consider going out to visit some of your favorite local businesses and adding your support to the already overwhelming effort to restart the economy.
As we slowly and carefully work our way back toward normalcy, operations are slowly beginning to shift back to their natural state at the LEDC as well. While we are still working with businesses daily to ensure that everyone who needs disaster resources receives them, we are also beginning to be able to work with new business prospects again. It will be a long process to return to where we were pre-pandemic with market instability making expansion and development a riskier process than before. However, as always, we are remaining dedicated to pushing forward with the city of Linden and doing our best to attract work with business prospects interested in contributing to our local economy.
One such prospect that has been discussed at length is Open Hearts, Children and Family Services. Open Hearts is a non-profit organization specializing in services for children in the foster system. In October of 2019, Open Hearts purchased the old Good Shepherd hospital in Linden with the intention of installing a residential treatment facility for foster children.
Because of the industry that they exist in, the COVID-19 pandemic thankfully didn’t represent a significant financial threat to Open Hearts, but the health crisis did still prove to be a roadblock to the organization’s development efforts in a different way. Back in March, Open Hearts met with the State Guard of Texas regarding their facility in Linden. The State Guard was surveying vacant medical facilities for possible use in the event that the pandemic caused the need for facilities capable of handling hospital overflow. It was very much “up in the air” for many weeks as to whether the state would need the use of Open Hearts’ facility here in Linden and Open Hearts’ leadership wanted to ensure that their assets were at the full disposal of the state and the community should they be needed for healthcare purposes. However, now that the statewide reopening has be
However, now that the statewide reopening has begun, Open Hearts can once again begin to proceed with their development plans for the facility. As of now, they are working hard to secure contracts with the state Child Protective Services and satisfy all administrative requirements to be able to serve our state health service region. The LEDC has been working with Open Hearts for
The LEDC has been working with Open Hearts for just a little over a year now all the way back when they were still in their site selection process for their potential facility. We’ve coordinated site visits and community engagements and assisted with location and acquisition of local services pertaining to the development of the facility site. We were instrumental in assisting Open Hearts in their final selection of the site in Linden over the other two cities that they were considering and we will continue to play a crucial role in assisting this excellent community asset and job creator as they assimilate and become a part of our city.
Despite the hardships that we have experienced over the past few months and the ones that we are still weathering today, we will remain resolute in our mission to serve the people of Linden, and every hardship that our city has survived is a learning experience that we will employ in that mission to grow and create prosperity for our community.