MCEDC (Marshall County Economic Development Corporation) has had a busy year so far. As a board member I’ve been pleased with some of the progress we’ve made. Here are a few highlights:
Now dubbed “The Commerce Building“, the structure is located on Commerce Street in the northwest PIDCO industrial subdivision. It is ready to show now and the shell should be complete by this time next month.
We’ve managed to do all of this without sacrificing any of our ongoing projects such as the County Development for the Future meetings, outreach to the community through SBDC and our commitment of support to Project Lead the Way. I’m looking forward to more good things from MCEDC. If you’re interested in keeping up on those, check out the newsletter link above and add your name to the mailing list. There are more good things to come!
I was pleased to be the guest of Dave Behr and the IDEC (Indiana Economic Development Corporation) on Sunday for the Colts/Ravens game. I was there representing MCEDC (Marshall County Economic Development Corp.) along with Jerry Chavez. Several business leaders were also in attendance as well as Mayor Senter from Plymouth. I’ve decided that watching the game from a suite is the way to go! Ha!
The game was a good one and the networking opportunity was good as well. It’s good to speak to people outside their normal work environment sometimes. Those connections can be important.
Speaking of those connections, all of us from Marshall County also got to meet and speak briefly with Governor Pence. I don’t expect that he knows my name, but I think he’s seen me enough now to recognize my face and know some of my issues.
This was my first NFL game and that in itself was quite an experience. Experiencing the crowd and seeing the stadium was all new. Of course I can’t walk through a parking lot without looking at the drainage patterns or walk through a building without assessing the details. Looking at the stadium structure with the retractable roof and such was fascinating.
All and all it was a good time and I think the discussions were worthwhile. I will definitely go again if invited.
After seven years of effort, the Metronet extension to Marshall County is going to break ground tomorrow. This is the culmination of a partnership between Marshall County, St. Joseph County and the City of Plymouth. Private partners included Hoosier Tire and St. Joe Regional Med Center. MCEDC helped play a role for which I am proud.
Hopefully this first step into Marshall County will lead to wiring the rest of the county with the same high speed Internet connectivity. More and more we’re finding that access to the Internet is considered as important as water, sewer and roads when businesses are considering their infrastructure needs.
If you want to join the pomp & circumstance, be there tomorrow, May 2nd at 1:00pm. (Invitation to the right)
I attended the groundbreaking for the new shell building in the Plymouth Industrial Park today. I got to wear multiple hats at this. Both PIDCO and MCEDC are partners in this venture and I sit on both boards. Easterday Construction Co., Inc. is doing the electrical installation for the building. There were a lot of nice words said about the project, but it’s hard to convey how much coordination went into getting all of the groups together on this. Not only PIDCO and MCEDC as listed above, but also the City of Plymouth and the Plymouth Redevelopment Commission had to come to terms on the project. It was a major effort over two years to make this happen. The building is scheduled to be complete early this Fall.
I’m hopeful that this will lead to similar projects throughout Marshall county. I have spoken to Culver about this. Argos could easily pursue this on the new Shovel Ready site they’re developing. The other Marshall County communities should be considering it as well.
For more particulars about the project, check out the MCEDC page on it here.
There was a recent discussion on LinkedIn about the value of small town theaters. It linked to another article here. Both made some interesting points that apply to Culver and Marshall County. Culver’s theater, most recently the Uptown Cinema (Formerly the Lakeside Cinema and before that the El Rancho Theater in my lifetime.), shutdown several years ago citing costs for upgrading to digital projectors as a major factor. Around the county, the Princess (or Lido) theater in Argos closed years ago and the same for Bourbon’s Comet and Gem theaters. The Rees Theater (picture here) is no longer operational in downtown Plymouth. The Tri-Way Drive-in Theatre has cited the digital projector issue as a potential obstacle to their continued operation. (More on Tri-Way’s upgrade costs here.)