Sterling Business and Technology Park is a great Northeastern location in Sterling Township, Wayne County to start, expand or relocate your business. It includes 23 parcels of three to 30 acres, covering 252 total acres. The park has been approved for light manufacturing, distribution and professional office space.
It is located just off I-84 and just minutes from I-380 and I-81, putting Manhattan, Philadelphia and Hartford in reach in less than three hours. The park boasts reliable, redundant power supply, multiple telecom providers, central sewer and water and interior roads, and uses a conservation design including a walking trail. It is the largest water re-use business park in Pennsylvania.
New, integrated approach
For much of the 19th century and well into the 20th century Wayne County experienced a robust economy supported by a solid manufacturing and rail infrastructure. However, this began to change in the latter half of the 20th century as the local economy started shifting to one based on retail trade, recreational accommodations and service jobs. Unfortunately, these are also among the lowest paying sectors of both the local and national economies. Today Wayne County ranks near the bottom in terms of its relative per capita wages.
As family-sustaining incomes suffered, more and more families and young people simply moved away in search of better economic circumstances. This trend has gradually led to a population mix of aging long-term residents, many of whom tend to be economically challenged, and their more affluent, retired neighbors, who spent their working years in places with higher standards of living.
Comprehensive plan
In 2010, Wayne County completed a 10-year update of its Comprehensive Plan, and the Board of Commissioners wanted to make sure that the groundwork laid out in the various elements of the plan became the foundation for a bold, new future.
In 2013, Wayne County recognized that these evolving trends were leading to unsustainable communities from an economic, cultural and educational perspective. This realization led to the creation of Wayne Tomorrow, a county-commissioner and community-supported planning initiative aimed at reversing these negative trends.
Inclusive process
Called Wayne Tomorrow!, the mission has been to establish an inclusive process for on-going dialogue and create a shared vision that will build the community and help guide development of Wayne County. To that end, the commissioners sought out people of varying backgrounds, professions and political outlooks from different industrial and economic sectors, assembling a group of people who might only rarely find themselves seated around the same table.
Five key elements
This diverse group identified five key elements to focus on both as individual components, but also as interrelated and connected topics, and they formed work groups to look more closely at:
• Agriculture.
• Business and Economic Development.
• Human Resources and Education.
• Quality of Life.
• Sustainable Communities.
• Working Groups Established.
Each of these work groups was asked to conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis, and from those efforts a set of themes emerged, showing up on each list in some fashion or another: Broadband Internet Access and Communication; a Career and Technical Center; Economic Development; Education Opportunities; Health and Wellness; Marketing and Branding; Natural Assets; and Transportation.
Over a period of several years, these dedicated working groups identified and prioritized a number of short- and long-term projects that are covered in some depth in Wayne Tomorrow's Strategic Plan. The Strategic Plan represents an integrated and staged development plan, which is the basis of a dynamic and evolving economic and cultural ecosystem that is envisioned to be foundational for future community and business growth.
Executive vision
Building Ecosystems - Wayne County, through Wayne Tomorrow, seeks to build a robust multi-dimensional economic and cultural ecosystem that will effectively address and reverse certain negative trends the county has been observing. This new ecosystem will be the foundation for ensuring improved conditions are achieved and then maintained into the future in spite of facing new challenges and a constantly changing landscape.
Environment Ecosystem Factors
To accomplish this, Wayne Tomorrow intends to follow a formal change management approach utilizing a set of guiding principles that maintain a healthy/sustained balance between the following somewhat diverse
environmental ecosystem factors:
A healthy economy that affords its citizens significantly improved employment opportunities such that the County is consistently ranked within the top 25 percent of per capita wages as measured against the state and national economies
A culturally and environmentally rich environment and physical infrastructure that serves to attract population and business growth/formation by offering a diverse and supportive array of cultural, educational, recreational, technological and quality of life outlets and opportunities (while simultaneously protecting Wayne County's unique natural environment)
Wayne County understands that it needs to embrace a new reality regarding its technological and physical infrastructure which, in some cases, is either obsolete and or inadequate to support the 21st Century needs of its people or businesses.
Communications
Wayne County understands that in addition to open and candid internal communications, there will be an ongoing need to aggressively market itself to people and organizations beyond its borders. This inter-dependency with northeast population centers is needed to facilitate business attraction, economic advancement and population growth
A public and private commitment to ensure that the necessary financial and human investment capital is available on a timely basis to ensure ongoing success for the county and its citizens
Balanced approach
This integrated and balanced approach will be routinely benchmarked and measured using a set of competitive KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). By measuring performance in this way, individual initiatives can be continually adjusted to meet aggressive goals in spite of constantly changing conditions.
