Cedar Park | Leander

Few understand this better than Aaron Santos, one of four owners of Two Saints Baking Co. and Café, which opened Jan. 16 in Leander. Santos said fear perpetuates a rumored weak economy.

“I think that people just need to be brave, and that’s what we’re doing here,” he said.

For the last six-and-a-half years, the City of Leander focused on attracting big retailers, Economic Development Director Kirk Clennan said. Secondary to this goal was encouraging local entrepreneurship, luring industrial and office employers, and promoting destination tourism.

But Clennan said in 2012 he hopes to shift the emphasis on retail and return to the basics of economic development: the recruitment, retention and expansion of primary employers.

“It’s become very apparent in the last few weeks, when after six and a half years of recruiting Walmart, Costco and roughly 4,000 other retailers to the community, they decided to go somewhere else besides Leander,” he said. “And that was compounded by the loss of J.C. Evans.”

J.C. Evans Construction Inc., formerly one of Leander’s largest employers, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in August and announced layoffs for 300 employees in December. Clennan said the loss reiterates a need for steady and gainful employment in Leander.

Leander has about 60 primary employers, including H-E-B, Dennis Steel and Leander Independent School District, yet about one-third of the population leaves the city on a daily basis for work, Clennan said. If more people stay in Leander for jobs, they will also purchase clothing, gas and food locally, pushing money back into the city through sales and property taxes.

“I think bringing in primary employers needs to take on a whole new level of effort because when people have a job—not an Applebee’s job or a McDonald’s job, a primary employer job—it affords them the benefits and the disposable income to buy houses, to purchase groceries, to buy cars, things like that,” he said. “It also keeps them here. They live, work, play, learn, shop and stay in Leander, Texas.”

A roller-coaster history

A review of the Leander economy over the last 12 years is akin to a tale of two cities.

Leander construction values soared between 2000 and 2006, along with sales tax receipts, water permits issued and other economic indicators. But that growth either dramatically slowed or reversed as signs of recession crept into the city, particularly over the last two years.