Video/Podcast: Shaping our economic future begins with the Eco Development Master Plan

By Bobbie Lehrmann, Assistant Director of Public Communications

In this week's episode of "What's Up, College Station?" Grace Hallowell and Economic Development Assistant Director Brian Piscacek discuss how College Station is shaping its future through an Economic Development Master Plan.

From local entrepreneurship to strategic tourism growth, learn how you can help shape the next five years of economic success, and how to get involved in a community workshop on June 26.

 The “What’s Up, College Station?” podcast is available weekly via Podbean, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple, and Amazon/Audible. Please subscribe, rate, and recommend!

If you have a suggestion for a future topic or interview, email me at ckillian@cstx.gov.

TRANSCRIPT

Grace Hallowell:
What's up College Station? I'm Grace Hallowell, and today I'm joined by Brian Piscacek, the Assistant Director of Economic Development. Hi Brian.

Brian Piscacek:
Hi.

Grace Hallowell:
We've had you on the show before. I'm excited to have you back, it's been a little while. And we're going to talk about some exciting things today, including the Business Over Breakfast event and the launch of the new strategic plan for the economic development department here in College Station. But before we start, let's get into your background with economic development. You've been here for some time now, so tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do here at the city?

Brian Piscacek:
Yeah, you know it's great, it's like you go to college and you have a degree plan and career in mind, and people divert and end up in all over. I pretty much ended up, I'm doing what I thought I'd be doing. So background in political science and history, have a master's in public administration. Always thought I'd go city government route. Got a job working for the community development office 12 years ago with the City of College Station just a couple of years out of college, and I've been here ever since. Worked in the city manager's office for a couple of years there in between and then have been in economic development tourism for about the last four years.

Grace Hallowell:
Are you an Aggie?

Brian Piscacek:
I'm not.

Grace Hallowell:
Okay. And that's a big misconception. I feel like a lot of people think a lot of our employees here or people that live here are all Aggies, but we're not.

Brian Piscacek:
Yeah, that's right. Our department's actually pretty diverse just from a collegiate background. But yeah, I'm originally from Waco. I went to school at Texas Tech. Undergrad, graduate school. My wife went to Tech as well, so we're Red Raiders here in Aggieland, so I try to wear our red and black proudly. But yeah, this was a chance for us to get a little closer to home being Waco's just an hour and a half up the road and it's been great for us to start a family, maintain a family here, and that's one of the great things about College Station. It is a great place to raise a family. It's been really good for us. My wife's a school teacher at College Station ISD and our kids are involved in all sorts of activities and things, and this place has just grabbed hold of us. We thought we'd maybe be here for a few years and then move on. And we've been here for quite a while now.

Grace Hallowell:
Yes, that's something that I've noticed too, is that you kind of plan for, okay, we're going to stay here a few years, get our bearings, get going, and then you realize, oh, this place is home.

Brian Piscacek:
Yeah, yeah, it definitely has… Again, it is kind of the perfect spot for us. Great for lots of activities for the kids to do with the university next door. I mean, we're big sports fans, so it's great to be able to see really Olympic level, world-class quality athletic events. That's wonderful. And then again with family close enough, but not too far. Not next door, but just up the road. It's been really, really good for us as well.

Grace Hallowell:
Yes. So how long have you been in your current role as the assistant director of economic development?

Brian Piscacek:
Yeah, so I moved over there about four years ago in an economic development manager role. I've had an opportunity to move up and do sort of a larger assistant director role. With that, it's primarily overseeing a lot of the economic development activities. Also, a little bit on the tourism side as well. The marketing piece kind of flows up through me as well. So I've gotten a really great education not only in tourism, but in tourism marketing specifically, which has been really great. So what's neat about economic development and tourism is they're both telling a story of how wonderful this place is.

It's just done in a little bit of a different way where with economic development, it's really focused on business attraction or retention, whereas with tourism, you're really leaning into the visitor aspect. But what's great is whenever we're able to deliver a quality of life amenity or something from a business recruitment expansion standpoint, that's something that benefits the residents, but it certainly benefits the visitors who come here as well for any various sports tournaments, leisure reasons, meetings, conventions, all of those sorts of things.

Grace Hallowell:
Yes, and College Station is definitely growing. We've been growing. And what are some of the changes that you've seen during your time here? I know from people that I talked to and even since me being here for the last four years, I feel like things have been changing and it's a completely different city than it was even five, 10 years ago.

Brian Piscacek:
Simply, there's just a lot more people and a lot more activity. We moved here in the summer of 2012. And I mean, I still remember that was kind of a different time where I still feel like a lot of the students went home for the summer and things… It never really dies down. It's certainly less now in the summer, but it builds back to such a significant degree that there's activity really throughout the year.

And we've got a legit rush hour now, which is kind of fun. It's an hour, but it's there and you experience it. And we've got a lot of major infrastructure projects on the horizon. A lot of that has to do with just the fact that there are more people here, that it's a growing burgeoning area. I mean, over the last 25 years, we've essentially doubled in population. So you can absolutely feel it, but with that population increase comes a lot of new amenities and offerings, especially when we're out. We're recruiting retail, we're trying to bring in those national-level retailers. They've got certain minimums where it's like they need a population of this, they need a household income of that. And as we grow and mature and diversify, you're closer to those, which is why you're seeing continued growth in all sectors, but certainly in retail as well.

Grace Hallowell:
Yes, I know. I'm excited. This was just announced for Portillo's. I grew up near Chicago, so I am very, very excited for that retailer to be here. It's going to be a little dangerous being so close to City Hall here. I might be going over there too much, but that's a good thing. And what is one thing that you wish people knew about your department or economic development? I know a lot of times some people can have certain misconceptions about growth and development. So what is one thing that you wish people knew?

Brian Piscacek:
Well, the funny thing, it's almost at a macro level of working for the city. People hear about you work for the city, then you must know exactly like what that one kind of random infrastructure project is or whatever else. We live here and work here and love it. And that's kept us here. But yeah, I think the unique thing is, oh, you work for the city. You must know all of these things.

Certainly, there's so much that's happening, and we're such a large and growing city that the fortunate thing is that we are still small enough to pick up the phone and reach out to public works or capital projects or parks or whatever to really learn all of the various things. But that's I think the number one question that I get is just kind of those off-the-wall things that are untethered from economic development. And you try to assist people as much as you can, but you never really know what you're going to get when you're kind of out in public.

Grace Hallowell:
Right. So what is something that makes you so passionate about economic development in College Station specifically?

Brian Piscacek:
Yeah, I mean, the purpose of economic development is to grow and diversify the economy. So we get to do that in a real unique way here in College Station. It's a special unique place in that there's a lot of non-traditional aspects to it. There's not a traditional downtown. It's really heavily reliant on the university. I mean, it's in the name, it's College Station. It literally was a train station that a city grew around with the university is that central focus point. So what it offers, again to families, I think that's what has kept us here is again, the proximity to other kind of core areas.

You've got Houston that's continuing to grow. You've got College Station, you've got relationship with City of Bryan, so there's so much there that you can take advantage of in this area. And I think that's one of our biggest differentiators and selling points is the quality of life. That I can still go home for lunch if I want to and get a sandwich. You're still able to do that, but then you can also go see, again, elite-level athletics. You can go see Broadway-style shows on campus at Rudder Theater. There's so much that you can do and take advantage of that. It's kind of the perfect mix of, again, I hate to sound super clichéd, but still that small-town feel where everybody you run into, whether it's at the grocery store or elsewhere, is truly welcoming. It's got a high level of amenities. Because of the university's presence, it allows us to punch above our weight, I think.

Grace Hallowell:
Right. And that's something I feel is unique to many other cities our size. They don't have as many amenities as we do, or some do, some don't. But that is one thing that we keep seeing over and over again, which is that we keep getting recognition for being a great place to raise a family or a great place to retire. We have a big retiree population, and it's not just the college students, although college is in our name, and they are a big part of our population. There is something for everybody here.

Brian Piscacek:
And you do, I mean, college obviously huge impact, right? I mean, you're talking about when you've got your population, median age is 23, 24. I mean, that's unique about it. Again, being from Waco, going to school in Lubbock, living and working in College Station, I mean, I've kind of gotten a tour of college towns around Texas and there's certain consistent things that you experience and it's just kind of a vibrancy that's around town because of the support of the university and the passion that people feel for it. And yeah, because that median age is lower, it is a youthful, again, exuberant experience with all of the different things that you can leverage from that. So I love college towns and obviously have really enjoyed living and working here in College Station over the last dozen plus years.

Grace Hallowell:
What is the biggest thing that you've learned during your time here at the city?

Brian Piscacek:
Oh, that's a really good question. It's all about relationships. That's one thing that I really value, not only externally. With all the folks that we work with, the vendors, the businesses, that there's so many impacts, but it's really internally, it's been a real pleasure to get to know all these wonderful people that work at the city along with me. We're a thousand person organization and so much of your job is reliant on everybody else kind of supporting you and working you through it, whether it's a contract that we're trying to take through and that's legal and purchasing and you got to get stuff straight with fiscal services. There's so many other departments that you lean on to make sure that you are successful. So that's my really key takeaway and something that I really try to carry forward. It was a real learning experience whenever we created this department now.

I mean, economic development used to just be a division underneath the city manager's office. And then when we brought toward them and you created this new department, we got to build something culturally foundational from the ground up. And it's been a really, I think, unique experience. And especially for somebody like me that's been at the city for a little while and has had opportunities to move up and around the organization, it's been super rewarding to build a team that we have now that I feel like is super strong and aligned and very motivated to do great things for the community.

Grace Hallowell:
Yes. And our motto here is one city, one team. And I feel like we all really practice that. We all lean on each other, like you said, the different departments for things that we need. And yes, economic development and tourism go hand and hand.

And it really impacts our community with the growth, with the tourism rate. Like you said, there's so much for everybody to experience. And that kind of leads into what we are going to talk about today is the update to the… Is it strategic?

Brian Piscacek:
It's economic development master plan.

Grace Hallowell:
Okay. The update to the economic development master plan, because with growth like this, you can't just kind of wing it. There's a lot of planning that goes into it. So we're kind of starting that process here and we have some event opportunities for residents to be involved. So let's talk about what this master plan is and who it benefits.

Brian Piscacek:
This really goes back to a dozen years ago. Cities often have comprehensive plans that lay out land use and strategies for how they want the city to grow. There are utilities master plans, there are all sorts of master plans to guide that certain development of what you want to see. And the same can be said for economic development. You do it in a visioning sort of strategic way. So in 2013, the initial plan was adopted, kind of put in place that identified, hey, these are the target industries that we want to go after. This is the approach that we want to take to economic development when it comes to growth and development opportunities. There was a plan that was done in 2020 with a five-year horizon. It was taken to council literally like April, May 2020. So not great timing on that. So you kind of just go through that experience and well, you've got, it was still very applicable, but it was just that… It was a very interesting time, I think for all of us.

But getting through the end of that plan, again, that kind of runs through the end of this year. So now was high time to reinvigorate that process, reset the deck. We had a lot of changes obviously coming out of COVID. Now we're sort of ideally kind well past that kind of crisis moment, but also that included now the inclusion of tourism and the impact that it's got because tourism is a major piece of our economic development strategy. So now with tourism literally in the same building as economic development and staff like myself really with a foot on either side of the fence, that is a critical component even more so than maybe it was even before as it's spoken to from a strategic way.

So we pushed on an RFP earlier this year, identified a consultant partner, took that contract to our city council back in May. They have gotten started. We've had some initial meetings on that. So they're going to do existing conditions, all the background, groundwork, comparative analysis, those sort of things. There's a major stakeholder component I do want to talk about. But then it's basically going to carry us all the way through the end of this year. We should anticipate a final product, a final economic development master plan update by January of 2026. And that's going to guide everything that we do from an economic development and tourism standpoint through the next five years.

Grace Hallowell:
And what are some of the, I know you mentioned 2020, everything is so drastically different. I feel like my brain anyway thinks in terms of pre-COVID and then post-COVID. So what are some of the biggest economic development changes that you've noticed pre-2020 and post-2020?

Brian Piscacek:
Well, the interesting thing is we still have continued to grow and diversify as an economy. We obviously historically very heavily reliant on public sector employment because you've got the university, you've got the schools, you've got the county, you've got the cities, all of that. But what we've seen over the last 20, 10, even increasing over the last five is a greater diversification and heavily more reliance on private sector employment. So that's really good. You want to grow and you want to be further diverse. We're very fortunate in that we are a bit of a company town when it comes to the presence of the university, but the university is not shutting down, is not going anywhere. It's here. So that's our greatest leverage opportunity all the way through from talent, workforce, education, research development, quality of life, amenities, checks every single one of those boxes.

So that's going to be a major focus on what comes out of it and really how the city can partner and work and facilitate on those things. One of the things that we're probably more dialed in on now is kind of this entrepreneurship and innovation. There's been a lot of effort that's geared toward that, whether it's the plug and play agreement that's in partnership with Greater Rises Partnership and with City of Bryan and Texas A&M, that was announced earlier this year. Our work with The Cannon that is a Houston-based accelerator, our work with 1 Million cups, that's a local entrepreneur group that meets every Wednesday at our College Station Visitor Center at 1207 Texas Avenue.

Really leaning into entrepreneurship, but again, still doing a lot of the traditional economic development activities. So when it comes to business attraction, retention, expansion, figuring out the best path forward to be able to communicate with local businesses, how to help support them, be aware of any pain points, whether it's development related or it's maybe workforce issues or those sorts of things. Really being keyed in and plugged in on those issues. And then from a recruitment standpoint, understanding your assets, what you have, what you want to be and how we go out and target those companies. If it's about bringing… You get various leads and things, bringing somebody to College Station, how can we best position ourselves to make that a reality?

Grace Hallowell:
Awesome. Yeah. And you mentioned The Cannon and the 1 Million Cups. Those are great resources for local entrepreneurs, and something that I've noticed is that in our area specifically, there is such a big presence on local businesses and local entrepreneurs. So these are great resources, where can people find out more information and get involved in these opportunities?

Brian Piscacek:
So we do have some information on our website, grow.cstx.gov/Entrepreneurship, that does kind of line by line, explain what those organizations are, what they do, how you could benefit, how you could sign up, for example, with the digital platform that The Cannon has in partnership with the city. 1 Million Cups is a really unique organization. Started, I don't know, at least 10 years ago. It is a national level organization. We essentially have a chapter that's representing this region, that again, has met in various places around town over the last several years, but now has found a home here with us at our visitor center. Again, those meetings are open to everyone. It could just be you may just want to get out and meet people or maybe you have an idea. It doesn't have to be some sort of full-fledged business opportunity.

It's just nice to get out and we'd certainly love to meet from a staff standpoint, but also just everybody else in the room that's got a lot of knowledge and experience and has been there for a while. There are new people that attend every single week. I would highly encourage people if they're interested to reach out to us, but just show up on Wednesday. We do it again every Wednesday morning at the College Station Visitor Center at 8:30. So there's coffee, there's networking, there's usually a presentation that's involved by one of the business owners to share their story. And it's been a really great experience for us.

Grace Hallowell:
Yes. And that kind of goes into the planning for the Economic Development Master Plan. And we want people to be engaged and we want people to come out and be involved in this process because public input is very, very important for something like this. So how can people get involved in the planning process for the master plan update?

Brian Piscacek:
Yeah, so this is really, again, we're kind of in the initial phases of this, working with this consultant that is, again, kind of a strategic planning expert. This is what they do. They work with communities all across the country, a lot of work in Texas. So they've really refined not only their ability to just kind of do the simple sort of background details and putting plans together and those sorts of things, but really engaging the right way with stakeholders. So we have had a history of these business over breakfast meetings that are usually once a quarter, we'll do them in the morning. Typically on Tuesdays, we're doing something a little bit different coming up in the next few weeks.

On Thursday, June 26th, we're going to host a special business over breakfast. That'll be 8:30 at 1207 at our College Station Visitor Center. But it's going to be with our consultant. They're going to be here and it's a chance for a community workshop basically. So I would encourage anybody who wants to weigh in on their experiences or preferred strategies or just how we can help support, they're just looking to get feedback that can help create that community visioning. What are we trying to be? How are we going to try to do that?

So I'd encourage everybody to come out for that event and then they'll be there for the next couple of days and we'll be doing some interviews and focus groups and meet with staff and all of that. So it should be a really fruitful, engaging discussion. But again, we'd love for everybody to come out. We'll have breakfast. There's a light breakfast for folks. Yeah, they're just going to do some interactive activities. It's all about just getting really good feedback from the community, making sure we're hearing from the right people and they can kind of put that into their own sort of wonder. And then when it comes out from a visioning statement or a strategic standpoint, all of those pieces will be components to that.

Grace Hallowell:
Awesome. So I know we're talking a lot today and it's a lot of information, a lot of events, a lot of details. So one more time, let's kind of give a run-through of the timeline for the master plan update.

Brian Piscacek:
Sure. Yeah. So was adopted or was approved by council in May. The whole process is going to take us through the end of this year. We'll likely have an end product including an implementation workshop in January of 26. The first initial piece of this includes some stakeholder engagement that's going to start later this month. Again, really kicking off, launching this effort on Thursday, June 26 at the College Station Visitor Center at 8:30 for our special business over breakfast event. Again, that's really going to be the focus. Consultant will be here and they'll do all sorts of feedback opportunities for them. And then as we go on the plan, there'll be chances to engage further. In workshops, they'll take the temperature with council later on and there will be additional opportunities for engagement as we go, and we'll certainly be able to communicate that out to the community when the time comes.

Grace Hallowell:
Where can people find out more information about all of this?

Brian Piscacek:
I would direct people to the economic development website for the city, it's grow.cstx.gov. Certainly welcome any direct correspondence to me as well. Again, you can reach me via email or phone at the economic development/tourism office. Email is bpiscacek@cstx.gov.

Grace Hallowell:
Yes, and definitely check out the visitor center if you haven't yet. There's a lot of great merch there for you to purchase. There's also information, even if you're a resident here, I know I was in there the other day and all of the brochures with things to do around town in the area are very, very helpful.

Brian Piscacek:
Yeah, it is a great spot. And we're selling the history book too, that public communications, I mean, blood, sweat, and tears into that. It's really an incredible book. So I would encourage people to come check out the Visitor Center, maybe buy a T-shirt or check out the merch, and certainly don't miss the history book that's there as well.

Grace Hallowell:
Yes. Okay. Before we go, we're going to do a quick little rapid fire game of questions.

Brian Piscacek:
Cool.

Grace Hallowell:
Thank you so much for being here. This has been really informative. So we're going to learn a little bit about you today with these questions. Are you more of a bookworm or a movie buff?

Brian Piscacek:
I'm more of a movie buff. I wish I read more. I have a book that I'm sort of reading, but it's just a really low slog. I just have too much. There's too much like Netflix in my life to grab the book, so I'd like to… Maybe that's a good opportunity for next year or something. That's got to be a New Year's resolution is to read more.

Grace Hallowell:
Yeah. What sort of genres of movies or books do you gravitate towards?

Brian Piscacek:
I love historical fiction. I'm a big history guy. Again, majored in political science and history, so certain time periods, it's always my interest. I do a lot of podcasting, and it's either sports or history, pretty much.

Grace Hallowell:
Okay. Speaking of history, who is one person past or present that you would like to have a picnic with?

Brian Piscacek:
Man, I mentioned I was a Red Raider early on. I'm going to go Patrick Mahomes. He's the man.

Grace Hallowell:
That's a good one. Yeah. I did not know that he was a Red Raider. That's something new that I've learned today. What is your favorite thing about College Station?

Brian Piscacek:
It's got something for everybody. It's just a great place to raise a family. Again, it's been a good opportunity for us. This place grabs hold of you and goes. And from an extracurricular standpoint again, we've got a seventh grader and a third-grader now, and they're involved in all sorts of activities and things and they couldn't experience life anywhere else.

Grace Hallowell:
What is your favorite pizza topping?

Brian Piscacek:
Man, you know what I'm really into now is the hot honey pepperoni.

Grace Hallowell:
Yes.

Brian Piscacek:
It's really good. I actually had it a couple of days ago, RX Pizza has a really good one.

Grace Hallowell:
Yes, my husband is a big fan of the hot honey as well. I have not tried it yet, but I've heard very, very good things and that seems to be the trendy thing now.

Brian Piscacek:
Yeah, it's killer. It's really good. Yeah, I highly recommend.

Grace Hallowell:
And lastly, what superpower do you wish you had?

Brian Piscacek:
Flight.

Grace Hallowell:
Yes. I feel like that's a good one.

Brian Piscacek:
Yeah. I love to fly.

Grace Hallowell:
Well, thank you so much, Brian, for joining me today. This has been really informative. One more time, where can people find out more?

Brian Piscacek:
You can go to Grow.cstx.gov for all things economic development.

Grace Hallowell:
And that's what's up.

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