Cypress Leaders Find Value In Collaboration With Sunstone Economic Development Challenge @ USC Price

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Chris Wong, Business Development Manager for the City of Cypress, said the City was looking for some fresh perspective when it heard about the Sunstone Economic Development Challenge @ USC Price.

The opportunity to work with a team of USC Price School of Public Policy graduate students sounded like it would fit the bill. “We wanted ideas, and we pushed for that,” Wong said. So Cypress became one of the five cities participating in the 2025 version of the Sunstone Challenge.

This was the third year of the Challenge, where teams of graduate students spend a semester working with city officials to address economic development challenges. The resulting report and a final presentation are judged by experts, with cash prizes in the balance.

The Cypress team was Melody Maravilla, Edith Hernandez and Fatima Rodriguez-Ortiz, all first-year master’s students at USC. They worked with Cypress Planning Director Alicia Velasco as well as Wong.

Cypress is a town of 50,000 or so on the Orange County border. The City’s economy is driven by commercial businesses along Lincoln Avenue and the business park along Katella Avenue.

In order to complete a detailed proposal in a short amount of time, it was decided the team would focus on revitalizing the Lincoln Avenue corridor. There are about 250 businesses on the commercial strip.

The team’s final staff memo emphasized building on the corridor’s existing success. A community survey would serve the dual purposes of discovering what types of restaurants and shops residents wanted, and to instill a sense of ownership to drive a “shop local” initiative.

Another community-building recommendation was the creation of “welcome packages” for new business owners. In addition to samples of Cypress wares, it could provide information on navigating city processes, Chamber of Commerce information, and other resources.

“I did like the welcome packages idea,” Wong said. “I manage business licenses now, and this would be a good way to engage new businesses.”

Longer term recommendations included facilities and façade improvements.

Cities interested in being part of the 2026 Sunstone Economic Development Challenge @ USC Price should fill out the Client City Intake Form. For more information about Sunstone Cities’ services, go to https://sunstonecities.com/.