Editor’s note: This is the conclusion of a two-part series.

When it comes to El Dorado County’s plans for economic improvement, success may be a dish best shared with regional neighbors rather than feasted on alone.

Put another way: If you can’t beat them, complement them.

That’s how Debbie Manning, executive director of the El Dorado Hills Chamber of Commerce, describes the logic behind the county’s unfolding economic development action plan and her organization’s plans to develop a California Welcome Center inside Town Center.

For the past 15 years, her community has had a younger-sibling relationship to Folsom, where Manning said it’s “common knowledge” that El Dorado Hills residents travel to do most of their shopping. In recent years, however, Manning has witnessed a flipside to that trend, with Folsom residents traveling up the highway to do the same.

“Folsom and El Dorado Hills can be very complementary to each other,” said Manning, who believes El Dorado Hills can attract the independently owned specialty stores, boutique-type shops and lesser known franchises Folsom lacks.

That’s a mantra she’s been repeating to community leaders, business interests and government officials as El Dorado Hills continues to examine what niche it should fill in the regional economy.

“We need to have what Folsom doesn’t have,” Manning reasoned.

Aside from the California Welcome Center, a luxury hotel development would be the last major piece needed to complete Town Center, county and local business officials say.

Chateau Du Lac is envisioned as a 133,000-square-foot boutique hotel with a Mikuni’s restaurant, ballroom and conference center, and retail shops on a 4-acre parcel. Renderings of the hotel have already been done, but a financing gap needs to be addressed before construction can come underway.

Recently, representatives with TradeWinds Partnership and the Mansour Company described the appeal of building the four-star hotel at an Economic Development Advisory Committee meeting in Placerville. According to minutes from that Oct. 7 meeting, TradeWinds co-owner Michelle Affinito said the $30 million project in the middle of Town Center would create 175 jobs during its development and ultimately generate more than $15.5 million in taxable revenue for the county.

Assistant Chief Administrator Ron Grassi said the county is eyeing roughly $3.5 million in Community Development Block Grant funds to close a financing gap for the project. The CDBG program supplies up to $35,000 for every new job that meets certain criteria, Grassi explained.

More centrally located communities like Folsom and Rancho Cordova have had an easier time drawing major chains and big-box retailers. According to Howell Ellerman, professor of business and real estate at Folsom Lake College, the reason Town Center developed the way it did, as a high-end lifestyle shopping center, is because Power Center got to the broad-appeal super-center market first, anchoring tenants like Home Depot and Borders.

Plans have been approved for multiple projects in the Palladio site, including a Barnes & Noble bookstore, Whole Foods grocery store and 16-screen Cinema West movie complex. Kaiser Permanente has already completed an ambulatory center on its 50-acre medical campus on Iron Point Road and Broadstone Parkway next to the Palladio site.

Two businesses set to open this month include a Fresh and Easy grocery store on Blue Ravine Road and Sutter Street Steak House on Sutter Street.

Yet rather than view Folsom’s continued retail growth as a threat, Manning believes in tying it to a Highway 50 corridor marketing strategy that stretches from Rancho Cordova to Amador County.

Chambers of commerce in Rancho Cordova and South Lake Tahoe, as well as the Folsom Visitors Center, were among the groups that sent letters of support to the state for building the Welcome Center in El Dorado Hills.

“The people supporting it see the benefit,” said Manning, who has been working with regional partners on the corridor marketing strategy for the past three years. Manning envisions the Welcome Center as the key to drawing 15,000 return visitors to the area a year.

“This is outside just Folsom and El Dorado Hills,” Manning said. “This is regional.”