Photo: Shaun Penner / EverythingGP staff

By Shaun Penner

Economic Development Rebrand

‘Invest Grande Prairie’ aiming to increase economic investment, opportunities

Oct 27, 2021 | 12:41 PM

The city’s economic development department has re-branded to Invest Grande Prairie, which comes with an aim of further spotlighting the city’s investment retention and attraction efforts to continue building out Grande Prairie’s diverse economy.

Economic Development Manager Rebecca Dodd says this rebrand builds on the last few years of work within the department to further put their proactive attraction and retention efforts out into the forefront.

“It’s really to position ourselves within the community and ensure our local entrepreneurs and our businesses have a point of contact, basically so they know exactly who they can come to for resources,” said Dodd.

“But it’s also for those prospective investors and people from outside of the community that are possibly looking at Grande Prairie as a place to start a business or invest.”

As part of the rebrand, the department has also developed its own website as an offshoot of the city’s website.

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Dodd says this will serve as a one-stop-shop for investors and business owners to turn to for all relevant market information, including market data, analysis, and reports.

“We’ve really built out the data portal portion of the website,” said Dodd. “(It has) all of the information you need as a current or prospective business within Grande Prairie.

“The data portal will be invaluable to businesses as they are looking to make those business decisions for growth, expansion or initial investment.”

She adds the rebrand also brings Grande Prairie in line with other urban centres, which investors and businesses are already seeking out.

“They would be used to working with an Invest Grande Prairie-type organization as they look to make those investment decisions,” said Dodd.

“This just helps to put it in a way that is easily accessible and manageable for businesses, so they can go on and find all of the information that they are looking for quickly and easily.”

Also, with the aim of offering real-world insight into the successes of city businesses, Dodd says the new website will also feature stories from local businesses on some of the creative ways they make the Swan City’s economy thrive.

“We know we are very fortunate to have a strong and diverse economy, but really our greatest asset is our people and our entrepreneurs, and the entrepreneurial spirit,” said Dodd. “This new rebrand… is our opportunity to really leverage that storytelling, and start to share some of those stories of the people that make our business community so great.”

Invest Grande Prairie has also moved its location from City Hall to Centre 2000, which will join the department with the Grande Prairie and District Chamber of Commerce and the Grande Prairie Regional Tourism Association.