Q: What’s your favorite place to have a meeting in Dublin outside of the office?
A: I enjoy having morning coffee meetings in the lobby of the AC Marriott in Bridge Park. I also find La Chatelaine to be a quiet place for an early morning meeting, and the scrambled eggs are positively perfect there. Matt the Miller and Pint Room are great lunch meeting locations.
Q: What are you most proud of accomplishing as part of the Dublin Economic Development team?
A: It’s definitely a tie between landing Dublin Methodist Hospital over a decade ago and securing the location for Ohio University’s central Ohio campus. Both were missing links in our community. Having a hospital and a university in town are great recruiting tools for job seekers and provide great amenities for our residents.
Q: What’s your biggest concern right now, from an economic development standpoint?
A: I worry about our aging buildings, particularly in Metro Center. Employers and employees are choosing business locations based on nearby walkable amenities, and the office parks of the 90s are very secluded by design. I’m hopeful we can encourage the development community to consider adding business services into those older office parks to keep those areas competitive.
Q: What are you most excited about this year?
A: I’m excited for the new restaurants opening in Downtown Dublin, just in time for patio season. I’m also looking forward to the new library, the riverfront park and the pedestrian bridge across the river. Adding new entertainment destinations to our community over the next couple years adds a lot of buzz and activity.
Q: What’s your favorite part of your job?
A: I enjoy meeting new businesses and learning their “Why Dublin” story. We have so many small businesses thriving here, and they all love Dublin for different reasons, whether it’s the services, parks, safety, easy commute or special events.
Q: What’s your monopoly piece, and why?
A: The racecar. I grew up an avid Indy Car fan and wanted to race cars when I grew up… until I tried to learn to drive a manual transmission. It wasn’t pretty. Now I settle with taking my soccer mom Honda on the Emerald Parkway 500 every day.
Q: What else would you like people to know about Economic Development, yourself or Dublin?
A: We love Dublin. We could talk about Dublin all day long. We sell the community and its attributes every day. We have the best job – we get to brag about all the wonderful things going on here and convince people they are missing out by not being a part of it!
Colleen M. Gilger
Colleen Gilger is the City of Dublin’s Economic Development Director. She has served the City’s Economic Development office since 2003; and in its Community Relations office from 1997-2003.
Comments are closed.