New EDIC Director Wants To Improve Community Relations
Now about a month into his new position, executive director of the Economic Development and Industrial Corporation Wayne Lingafelter has a message to share with the Falmouth community: the EDIC is open for business.
To be clear, it was never really closed, but being under new leadership means that the quasi-governmental board is looking to broaden its connections with the business community in town and deepen the working relationships the EDIC has already.
“We want to make sure that we’re a forward, public-facing body,” Mr. Lingafelter said in a phone interview. “We’re open for business. I don’t want to imply that we were closed, but we very much want to continue our efforts to reach out to the community and understand the business community’s needs.”
Mr. Lingafelter has been a resident of Falmouth for about five years, but he originally hails from Ohio. Most of his 30-year career has been in commercial real estate, bringing him to various markets in the Midwest and mid-Atlantic, his most recent stop being in the Baltimore/Washington, DC, area. Before joining the EDIC, Mr. Lingafelter was the president of the development and construction division of a public real estate company. That experience, he said, felt like it was in alignment with what the EDIC was looking for in its search for a new executive director.
“I got introduced to the opportunity because I’ve spent the last three years or so as a non-board member but an active participant with the affordable housing committee,” Mr. Lingafelter said. “I got to know Michael Galasso and Sam Patterson [who are members of the EDIC] through that work, and they were the ones who happened to mention the EDIC opportunity to me….While not all of their projects are real estate-related, a number of them are, so I thought it was a good alignment with my background and I had respect for the board members that I did know. So, I threw my hat in the ring.”
Mr. Lingafelter said his first month at the EDIC has been busy, which is one of the reasons he was drawn to it in the first place.
“If you step back and look at the EDIC over the years, they’ve always—it seems to me, this is my perspective—had at least one or two major substantive projects that they’ve been shepherding through,” he said. “A good example of that is the solar array farm that is on Thomas B. Landers Road, which is a venture that was ultimately done with the Town of Falmouth. The Falmouth Station [on Depot Avenue] is another example of a substantive development project that the EDIC had done that has broader support through the community.”
Despite being a quasi-governmental body, Mr. Lingafelter said that the EDIC receives no financial support from the Town of Falmouth for these projects.
“[We are] not supported by any tax revenues, we’re not allocated money by the Town of Falmouth in any way for support,” he said. “The EDIC has to identify, pursue and develop its own revenue sources, if you will, to support our mission. The solar array farm that the board worked on for a number of years was a great example because we just started collecting the revenues from the second phase of that, a significant portion of which goes to the town. But there also is revenue from that that comes directly to the EDIC and that really supports our mission and allows the EDIC to continue its outreach in the community.”
A similar project that the EDIC is currently working on is a long-term planning study of the Falmouth Station. The study is possible, thanks to a $57,000 grant the EDIC secured from Mass Development and brings the EDIC one step closer to its long-term goal of revitalizing not just the station, but the entire property. The study will include stakeholder meetings and community outreach aspects, two points that the EDIC is hoping to emphasize moving forward.
“I think the EDIC has had a nice profile in the community, particularly as it’s had some of these larger projects in the forefront,” Mr. Lingafelter said. “One of the things that we’re also trying to do is we want to improve our outreach within the community and particularly with some of the boards and committees that serve the community.…If there are particular initiatives that people think are well aligned with our mission, I’d be happy to chat with anybody about their priorities or concerns.”