Jan. 22—MITCHELL — Mitchell marketed itself as a town with money to give.
Newcomers responded with their moving trucks and new jobs.
And $25,000 later, $1,000 at a time, the Mitchell Area Development Corporation considers its Move to Mitchell incentive program a success after unveiling it in late 2023, offering $1,000 to anyone who moved to Mitchell for a new job and lived in the community.
MADC Chief Executive Officer Geri Beck said the incentives were a glowing success, which accomplished exactly what the community leaders hoped.
“It worked very well and we learned a ton from it,” Beck said. “It wasn’t just from one state, we had people move here from a number of states. And from out of the country, as well. In the process, we made some good friends and let people know that they are welcome to our community.”
The program started Oct. 1 and concluded earlier this month. New residents participating in the program were required to share a rental agreement or purchase agreement showing they were living in Mitchell and a payroll stub showing they were working full-time in the city. Beck said some of the city’s larger employers accounted for a larger share of the applications but the program included several electricians, a chef, a pastor, an engineer, along with manufacturing jobs.
We had a bunch of careers represented, which was great,” Beck said. “The key was to make a statement that Mitchell has incentives and if they’re look at moving to South Dakota, show why Mitchell stands out.”
The program marketed Mitchell as a growing community with new businesses, expansion of existing manufacturing businesses, hotel and retail locations and restaurants and a new high school under construction.
Beck said she would like to see the program continue in the future but it will be a decision made by the MADC Board of Directors.
“I think it’s definitely something we can repeat in the future,” Beck said.
The project dovetailed off of Gov. Kristi Noem’s Freedom Works Here campaign to get people to move to South Dakota for new careers. Noem lauded the creation of the plan in September when she visited for the groundbreaking of the $500 million soybean processing plant south of Mitchell. Mike Lauritsen, the MADC’s workforce and housing director, said a Noem social media in December sharing news about Mitchell’s program led to more people taking advantage of the $1,000 program.
“I think she shared that and it was a $5,000 day and we paid out some checks to people,” Lauritsen said.
Lauritsen said the program illustrates the need to continue working on adding housing options to Mitchell to help foster a growing workforce.
“We’ve heard it from our largest employers, they need housing,” he said. “They have a lot of jobs they can fill but they can’t add those people because we don’t have the housing to put them in. We’re still trying to work on recruiting people.”
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