Jodi Royal-Goodwin, Muscatine's Community Development Director, says the team arrived yesterday Tuesday and after interviews, tours, and community meetings, will present its preliminary findings on Thursday.
"Just need an outside perspective to look at it and be like "Oh, that's working well or if you tweak this, or here are some other resources.' And that's what we're after, how can we take it to the next level and really re-energize the initiative and the efforts that are going on in the community already."
She says the city and chamber of commerce already offer grants and forgivable loans and other help to new and existing businesses downtown, and they've had some success so far.
"The pandemic has been really hard on businesses and some have struggled. We've done things and we've worked with local businesses, and we've actually had five businesses start downtown in 2020 and 2021."
In addition, the Iowa Center for Economic Success opened a local office last month in Muscatine, only its second office in the state.
The state assessment team will present its findings Thursday at noon, at the Musser Public Library.