REGIONAL COMPETITIVENESS PLAN UPDATES

Commerce Lexington is excited to provide our key partners with an update on the Regional Competitiveness Plan, including detailed information on key deliverables and mutually agreed upon action items. Together we continue to work toward increasing jobs and workforce in the 9-county Greater Lex region. We appreciate your continued support of regional collaboration, enhancing how we work together to improve economic development, talent attraction, and policy advocacy. 



Our team has designed a booklet with key information on the Regional Competitiveness Plan, including a project overview, updates on key deliverables complete with QR codes, and event information. Please use this booklet as a resource for you or members of the community!

LEADERSHIP CENTRAL KENTUCKY APPLICATIONS OPEN NOW

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT SIMULATION

June 23 | 9:00 AM - 12:30 PM

Hosted by BCTC Winchester Campus

1919 Rolling Hills Lane

Winchester, KY 40391

Come learn firsthand what economic developers do daily to recruit new, good paying jobs to the Greater Lexington Region and the important role community leaders play in the process.

Elected officials who attend are eligible to earn 3 continuing education credit hours through the Department of Local Government County Official Training Program or the Kentucky League of Cities City Officials Training Center.

SAVE THE DATE: REGIONAL SUMMIT

NOVEMBER 12, 2025

Presented by:

Location: Hyatt Regency Lexington

401 W. High St.

Lexington, KY 40507

The Regional Summit provides an opportunity for businesses, community, and local government leaders within the 9-county Bluegrass Region to network with each other, receive updates on the Regional Competitiveness Plan, and learn from industry experts about how we can make Greater LEX more competitive for jobs and talent. 

Listen to the DevelopLex Podcast, Episode 65. Live from the 2024 Regional Summit, featuring Didi Caldwell & Jeff Bischoff: Inside the World of Site Selection and Economic Development.

TALENT ATTRACTION & RETENTION

Commerce Lexington is working with education, tourism, and economic development partners on efforts to increase regional workforce growth through attraction and retention strategies. 

Commerce Lexington continues to enhance the regional talent attraction website, working with regional partners to develop a new 'community quiz' feature. This feature will accompany the 'cost-of-living calculator' and 'Find-a-Job' tool as engaging ways to drive traffic to the site. The quiz also provides county specific webpages, allowing users to learn more about each county and city in the region, including fast-facts, additional quality of life content, quick links, and more. This feature is currently under development and is set to launch this summer.

Digital and social media campaigns continue to increase regional awareness to external audiences. Phase 1 continues to target visitors and alumni of the region’s 10+ colleges and universities. With two quarters of data gathered from digital ads, audiences who have interacted with the website since its launch are now being retargeted with digital content. This retargeting strategy allows for more specific ad messaging, using user data to serve ads based on behavioral data. New creative featuring seasonal imagery and video are now being served across all platforms.

BY THE NUMBERS | October. 24' - March 25'

6.4

million impressions on digital ads across all platforms

30,813

new users on the lookatlex.com website

Economic Development

In 2025, Commerce Lexington continues to work with Greater Lexington's Bluegrass Alliance (regional economic development leaders) on key deliverables to improve job attraction for the region. 

New Economic Development Digital Marketing

In April of 2025, Commerce Lexington launched a digital marketing campaign to position the region as a premier, sophisticated business hub. The campaign highlights competitive advantages, key sectors, and industry success stories. The campaign audience is decision-makers such as C-suite executives, site selectors, and entrepreneurs connected with the region’s growth sectors such as advanced manufacturing, bio-technology, logistics, and food and beverage. Through strategic efforts, including digital ads and geofencing at industry events, the campaign ensures Greater Lex is increasing awareness of the region’s job site assets, industry clusters and as a cost-effective, business-friendly location for companies seeking to relocate, expand, or start new.

An example carousel ad (rotating ad) is shown below. It highlights a well-known brand that has found success in the Bluegrass Region, Tiffany & Co. This campaign will be replicated to showcase several companies throughout Greater LEX in the coming months.

Video Vignettes: the NINE

Production has begun on new video series called the NINE. This series is designed to promote the region through the experiences and insights of Greater LEX Leaders who represent existing businesses within strategic targets. These testimonial style videos will be used in paid digital promotions, social media, housed on the website, and leveraged to attract key sector targets to the region. Above is a drafted story board for the video series and to the right is a marketing sample - providing direction to the video shoot.

Commerce Lexington is proud to announce that it has been named a 2025 Economic Development Organization (EDO) of the Year by Business Facilities, marking its second consecutive year receiving this recognition. The award underscores the organization’s commitment to driving regional growth through innovative programs, strategic collaboration, and a unified vision for the future of the Greater Lexington Region.

Read the full announcement here.

Commerce Lexington continues to increase engagement with top site selectors and industry targets in 2025, including an enhanced approach to foreign direct investment. New email marketing efforts tailored to Site Consultants has been a huge success, seeing open rates north of 50%, which is well above industry standard. These email messages include information on available sites, quality of life information, and resources tailored to our target industry selectors, most recently highlighting food & beverage. See example here.

KEY STATS | JANUARY - MARCH 2025

8

new projects

43

total active projects

21

consultant interactions

6

site visits

POLICY & ADVOCACY

Commerce Lexington and regional leaders continue to advocate for better business climate policies and government funding to support key economic development infrastructure projects, including job sites, water and sewer, transportation, housing and talent attraction.

Regional leaders engaged with legislative leaders and members of the Central KY Legislative Caucus to advocate for the Greater LEX region during the 30-day Regular Session of the Kentucky General Assembly. During the “short session,” legislative leaders approached policy changes and budget amendments with caution due to uncertainty surrounding federal impacts on the Commonwealth.

The General Assembly advanced some of the Greater Lex competitiveness priorities, including reducing state income tax rates, streamlining regulations, investments in economic development (regional business parks, tourism and agriculture business development) and addressing some housing affordability solutions. More than 37,000 housing units are needed in the 9-county region to meet current workforce needs. Additional discussion about housing policy solutions and investments to address housing gaps are anticipated throughout the interim. 

The General Assembly holds Interim Joint Committee meetings during the summer and fall to discuss various topics and highlight priority issues for the 2026 legislative session. Meetings kick-off next week in Frankfort. 

For a recap of the 2025 30-day Regular Session of the Kentucky General Assembly follow the link below.

FEDERAL ADVOCACY

Commerce Lexington also continues to monitor the impacts of recent federal policy changes on the region’s economic competitiveness and keep leaders updated on the latest news. Regional leaders are working to update the 2025 federal issue priorities in preparation for the upcoming Greater LEX Bluegrass Region Washington, D.C. Fly-In on July 9-10, 2025. During the advocacy visit, business, education, and community leaders engage with members of the Kentucky Congressional Delegation and Trump administration officials to learn about issues, share top concerns, and support key priorities on behalf of the 9-county region. Some of the region’s key priorities will focus on advocating for policies that support economic growth and stability for the 9-county region, including making permanent the strongest pro-growth provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, strengthening domestic energy production, critical transportation investments at Bluegrass Airport, securing federal investments to develop shovel-ready sites for job growth, supporting research and innovation grants for the University of Kentucky, and implementing effective solutions to address the housing affordability crisis.

You can find the latest information on taxes and tariffs on our blog by following the links below.

WASHINGTON, D.C FLY-IN | JULY 9-10

Presented by:

Greater Lexington business, government and community leaders will participate in the Bluegrass Region’s annual Washington, D.C. Fly-In presented by Columbia Gas of Kentucky on July 9-10, 2025. The two-day trip offers attendees the opportunity to be policy ambassadors for the 9-county region in meetings with Kentucky’s Congressional Delegation, agency officials, Congressional staff, and legislative experts to discuss important federal policy issues impacting the region.

Participants will hear from various leaders and policy experts about key issues such as trade and tariffs, tax and regulatory reform, economic development, transportation infrastructure, Medicaid investments, broadband, housing affordability, energy policies, and workforce issues.

The D.C. Fly-In is organized by Commerce Lexington and the Greater Lexington Policy Group. Comprised of business, community and government leaders within the nine-county economic development region of Bourbon, Clark, Fayette, Franklin, Jessamine, Madison, Montgomery, Scott, and Woodford counties, the members of the Policy Group are responsible for crafting the federal policy agenda each year. 

A limited number of spots are still available. Please register by Friday, June 6, 2025. If you have questions please contact Anthony Allen, VP for Public Policy.

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