Knox County Area Partnership President Ken Springer says 2022 was a really good year in expansion for the area:
“The biggest one on the job side was the FCA Packaging deal. This is a manufacturer that is locating in Southwest Galesburg. They are going to create about 100 jobs. In addition to that, we had a couple renewable projects. We had an expansion of Innovative Production USA, which is a company that was originally recruited to the area back in 2020, they just expanded. They make oatmeal, it is a food processing company and then in between those larger projects, we had I think about nine startups that we helped launch last year.”
2023 already has 2 new projects on tap:
“Last week’s Galesburg City Council agenda, we had two new startups that received funding assistance from the City. One is called All Star Sports Academy and that is a sports coaching business, but they are also going to reopen the former Skate Palace Skating Rink in Southeast Galesburg. They are going to run that as a roller rink, but when the skating is not going on, they are going to use the facility for sports coaching, like batting cages and that kind of thing; it is going to be a cool business.”
The other start up is Brittany’s Boutique. They are located at the intersection of Farnham Street and Grand Avenue.
Meanwhile, It was a soft quarter for the Monmouth and Galesburg area in total sales for 2022. Knox County Area Partnership President Ken Springer reports that Monmouth had a 1.29% in sales tax receipts which was mainly in package foods and general merchandise. A 1.3% decline occurred in Galesburg during the same quarter but both communities are seeing a decline in the retail and apparel category.
“Overall, wasn’t really a great report for either community. You have to remember that retail sales are affected by inflations, so with the annualized inflation rate of about 7.1%, we would have needed to see 7% growth in retail sales from Quarter 3 of 2022 versus Quarter 3 of 2021 just to basically broken even. It was kind of a soft quarter for retail for both communities given the inflation issues that are going on right now.”
Overall, Springer reports our local area is hovering at 5.4% in unemployment numbers but the labor market is soft as well. Right now, 19,716 workers are available in the two counties in 2022 compared to 20,171 in 2021.
