Detroit Lakes Economic Development Summit: Business and the Community Springing Back to Life

DETROIT LAKES (KDLM) – The Detroit Lakes Regional Chamber of Commerce and community leaders from Detroit Lakes provided community members with a community wide economic update at the Detroit Lakes Economic Development Summit, held at the Historic Holmes Theatre, Friday.

After more than a year and a half of pandemic related restrictions and closures, Detroit Lakes’ business community appears to be springing back to life with lessons learned and hope for the future.

Peter Jacobson with the DLCCC was encouraged with how the DLCCC was able to adapt and excited to retain some of those adaptations including virtual fitness classes, flexible work schedules, video streams of youth sports and the completion of a shared space with the Becker County Museum.

Becky Mitchell with the Becker County Museum officially announced the groundbreaking for the new Becker County Museum, May 27. The museum has been raising funds for several years to build a new 30,000 square foot building with a cost of $6.4 million. Construction is expected to take around 11 months.

“It was pretty remarkable to see how quickly our community and economy rebounded with unemployment. That’s a good sign going forward,” said Kelcey Klemm, Detroit Lakes City Administrator.

It was not all good news, Jennifer Byers with the MN Chamber of Commerce indicated that job growth in the state is trailing the U.S. 14 of the last 20 years and high skilled jobs are in demand, but often highly skilled applicants are hard to find. Byers indicated that employment throughout the state isn’t expected to hit pre-pandemic levels until late 2022 or early 2023.

Josh Omang, incoming Detroit Lakes High School Principal is hoping to help alleviate the lack of high skilled applicants by increasing implementation of an Academy learning model within the High School blending academic curriculum with career-themed instruction and work-based learning.

“The thing we’ve learned from 2020 is to be grateful, what a blessing to share some good news, the challenges and all the things we can do to better our business environment”, said Carrie Johnston, President of the Detroit Lakes Regional Chamber of Commerce.