On Thursday at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Mayor Gary Slagel gave the traditional State of the City address to an assembled crowd of business leaders. He addressed the past year of Richardson as well as future issues.

Mayor Slagel first introduced the rest of the City Council and pointed to the new set of goals and initiatives enacted by this city council.

Much of the presentation was aimed at the business audience -- after all this was a Chamber of Commerce sponsored luncheon.

For those of you with short attention spans let me give you the score card of things mentioned and how often Mayor Slagel mentioned them:

5 - Redevelopment in general
4 - Real Estate and Economic development deals.
3 - Spring Valley redevelopment and vision planning
3 - LEED Certified buildings.
3 - Transportation and Transit oriented development
2 - Belt Line and 75 reinvestment and redevelopment planning

He then dove straight into initiatives based on the city's update the Comprehensive Plan. In particular he noted that there are six "study areas" in need of attention. In partcular he noted the West Spring Valley reinvestment plan.

"We are spending a great deal of time on Spring Valley," he noted.

In fact, he mentioned Spring Valley reinvestment and visioning three times during the address.

He gave some employment statistics as compared to last year showing that Richardson's unemployment rate last January was just about the same as Texas rate which is lower than that of the entire United States. However, now Richardson's rate has gone below that of Texas.

He added that February numbers were down a bit more for Richardson and that numbers had been decreasing with the possibility that unemployment might have turned a corner.

Property values he showed were generally flat. For both 08-09 and 09-10 fiscal years Richardson's property valuation was about 9.9 billion.

Sales tax is down and according to data shown that was to be expected. The good news, however, according to Slagel was that the sales tax revenue is ahead of about budget estimates. That was about a 6.4 increase over sale tax for the same time last year.

No tax rate increase occurred in the current year's budget and expenditures actually decreased compared to the previous year.

Slagel then went into a discussion on economic development. Slagel discussed a business survey where businesses were asked why they located in Richardson. Over half said freeway access and transportation were a key reason and just shy of half - 49.2% - said proximity to customers and supply. A third said cost of doing business was low and just under a third mentioned access to a good workforce was a key reason.

Even though times are tough nationwide "90 percent of Richardson businesses were either stable or increasing" according to the survey.

Slagel pointed to four key economic development announcements that he said highlights Richardson's strength in these generally weak times.

First was the new Blue Cross Blue Shield campus construction and opening in Galatyn Park. He stated it was the biggest corporate campus project in the DFW area since 1987.

"It was a Richardson company that stayed in Richardson," he stated.

Next was Texas Instruments RFAB on Renner Road. While built several years ago with foresight that it would later be put online, the RFAB (in which the R stands for Richardson) went online producing 300m analog wafers last year.

Third was the Parliment Group's acquisition of 220 acres along the Bush Turnpike next to the DART rail station a six to 12 month plan is being developed for an eventual transit oriented development.

Last was Digital Realty Trust's data center project in the old Collins Radio/Rockwell area. The unique area with heavily reinforced buildings - an artifact of the Cold War - and its own electrical substation made it ideal for a growing data center market.

Slagel noted that the City likes that DRT is "making LEED certified buildings out of existing space."

He then mentioned several other positive moves such expansion of AT&T's footprint in Richardson, esurance, Hitachi expansion and others.

On the transportation front Slagel discussed the Bush Turnpike expansion eastward down to I-30 which is expected to open late 2011.

The working of the Cotton Belt rail line through Richardson to DFW airport was discussed by noting that council member John Murphy was at a North Central Texas Council of Governments meeting to discuss building public-private partnerships to accelerate the building of the line.

Mayor Slagel also mentioned the possibility of a transit oriented development next to the Arapaho DART station. He said he couldn't discuss details but the proposal was good. The comment was accompanied by a Power Point slide of what looked like an architectural concept drawing of an attractive, somewhat out of the ordinary, mixed use development. Was this an old TOD concept drawing or something newer? I don't know.

Slagel discussed the 2010 Bond Program slated for the May 8 election. He said overriding factors on why to do it now was the cost of construction being lower and the cost money, due to economic conditions, was advantageous.

Various community revitalization projects were discussed including the home improvement incentive program which, according to Slagel, had 195 projects producing 18.1 million dollars in increased tax value to the city.

In closing, Slagel said Richardson was "strong, stable, and we are renewing ourselves."

He emphasized that what is happening cannot happen without community partnerships and support.