Inside Indiana Business reported that three Indiana Cities took positions in the Wall Street Journal’s list of Top Ten Places for Remote Workers: Evansville was #3, Lafayette was #5 and Fort Wayne was #10. The topic of remote workers comes up often at the Culver Crossroads meetings. While Culver has done a lot to become attractive to remote workers, I’m not sure we’ve done much to actually attract remote workers.
Culver saw a lot of remote workers during the pandemic. Not surprising that a community of second homes became a desirable location to shelter-in-place. One advantage that Culver had over the cities listed above (for sheltering in place) was our small size. We have many of the necessary amenities without the large population. We undoubtedly missed an opportunity to capture more of those remote workers.
While we have boosted our amenities, we can’t compete with small city amenities such as colleges. (Though to some extend, Culver Academies fills a lot of that gap. That’s not necessarily obvious to someone looking in from the outside.) What we should do is promote our proximity to these. Two of the above cities, Lafayette and Fort Wayne, are within 75 miles of Culver. Lafayette gives us proximity to Purdue. South Bend and Notre Dame are 45 miles away. Chicago is only 76 miles away! Michigan Wine Country is only 76 miles away. We’re only 100 miles of Indianapolis. Yet we only continue to promote Culver as a destination. The Culver Visitors Center promotes itself as Find Culver.
What if we were to also promote Culver as a hub? Marshall County Economic Development Corporation has been doing this with manufacturers for years, pointing out the manufacturing centers and vast population within a 200 mile radius of Marshall County. (One of those interesting statistics is that there are more people within 200 miles of Marshall County, IN than within 200 miles of Atlanta, GA.)
I know we’re still working on things and there are some issues, such as broadband, yet to be solved, but I don’t think it’s too soon to talk about why Culver is a great place to live, not just a great place to visit. This is an across the board thing. Look at the sign CabinetWorks has promoting working in Culver (above) and the image from their website promoting Culver itself (right). How do we extend their suggestion of working in Culver to living in Culver. Culver assisted Sand Hill Farm Apartments and The Paddocks bringing in workforce housing. They are in the process of helping two other developers bring in upper income housing. Is it possible to broaden the Culver Visitors Center’s mission to include finding new residents, not just visitors?
Earl Lilly, Plant Manager of Elkay Wood Products in Culver, brought a large contingency of Elkay employees to observe the cabinets going in at Sand Hill Farm Apartments this past Tuesday. Representatives of several divisions that worked on these cabinets were there including engineering, scheduling, production & shipping. They often don’t get to see their products in place, so this was a great opportunity to see a large installation underway just a block from the plant. Steve Deford of Deford Kitchens, the cabinetry installer for the project, was onsite to discuss how the installation was going. The installation is going well!
It was great to see some of the people that work in our community and could potentially be future residents at Sand Hill Farm Apartments at the site. The optics of the private/public partnership that occurred here was instrumental in Culver’s success in the Stellar Communities program. Elkay Wood Products and Easterday Construction Co., Inc. helped developer Culver Sand Hill Farm, LLC step up to the challenge of creating affordable housing for the Town.
Shelby Harrell, editor of the Culver Citizen, was on site to document the event. Her article appeared in The Pilot News on October 18, 2018. (See the article to the right.) The exposure can only help the project’s success. We count this as part of the community effort to see more entry-level housing in Culver. Thanks Shelby!
Unfortunately progress is currently impeded by the late start on the street. Lack of utilities is slowing us down and may force a stop soon. Currently we’re moving 5 gallon buckets of water to the site from our office in order to keep working. NIPSCO could not bring gas and electric to the building without the completion of street utilities. The furnaces are ready but can’t be fired without gas and electric, so we’ve started providing temporary heat with space heaters in order to keep things warm enough for the various sealants, adhesives and paint needed to finish out the project. The fire sprinkler system is full of water and in danger of freezing with the cold nights we’ve been having.
The lack of fire protection is also a concern, since the sprinkler system has water in it within the building, but does not have a hook up to the Town water system yet. The fire hydrants that serve the building currently have no connections. We’ve been assured these things will be available soon.
Affordable Housing continues to be the buzzword. A couple of weeks ago I was at a meeting with Governor Holcomb and we spoke about the issue. One of his staff members is trying to connect with me on that. MacKenzie Ledley, Library Director for Pulaski County Public Libraries, made a connection with Courtney Papa, District Director for Senator Todd Young’s office. Courtney and MacKenzie met me for a tour of Sand Hill Farm Apartments this past Wednesday. The issue is on Senator Young’s radar as well.
It is clear that our political leaders recognize that there is an issue. In my discussion with Governor Holcomb, he had just finished a presentation on the great job climate in Indiana and their efforts to reverse out-migration trends. I raised the question regarding where these new residents were going to live? This seems to be a harder question to answer than how to bring in new business. I get it. I don’t have a solution either. He took notes and then proceeded with the follow-up.
What I do in these situations is explain what we’ve done here in Culver. It may not be an universal solution, but without the Town of Culver becoming a partner in these efforts, Sand Hill Farm apartments wouldn’t be here and there would be no consideration of The Paddocks, the next phase of housing at Sand Hill Farm development. Without the proposed IHCDA funding, The Paddocks will not happen.
Les McFarland, Bourbon Town Council President, did us a solid Sunday, July 15th, and used his drone to take these (and a bunch of others) aerial pictures of Sand Hill Farm Apartments under construction. These are being used in the IHCDA application for the second phase – The Paddocks at Sand Hill Farm. This will be additional entry level housing. The application is supported by Culver’s Stellar Designation. It goes in July 30th and we’ll find out if we were successful in November.
This is the kind of collaboration and connections that have been achieved due to Marshall County Economic Development Corp.’s (MCEDC) County Development for the Future meetings that brought Marshall County and all of our community leaders together to meet and discuss common goals. I would not have known Les to ask for his help without this connection. Les may or may not have helped Culver in the past before we met and shared our common goals. Now we’re embarking on Marshall County Crossroads – an effort to duplicate Culver’s Stellar success under the new Regional Stellar program. We should have an advantage as we have been collaborating between our communities for over five years.
Thanks Les! Your help is sincerely appreciated.
The Dunes Work Session
May 20, 2024
Kevin Berger
Commentary, Culver, READI
Community, Culver, government, Multi-family, Residential, The Dunes, Trends
There was a work session held Wednesday evening, 5/15/24, to discuss The Dunes project. This was a combined session with the Culver Town Council, Plan Commission and Redevelopment Commission in attendance. Despite being advertised as a work session, they did allow limited questions from the public in attendance. I am not sure how many were watching via Teams, but there were only 7 “public” in the room.
I attended just to listen. As I have said before, I am generally in favor of this project, but The Devil is in the Details. This is the third project of this type, one of two that has regional matching dollars, that has been come up for the Town in the last 10 years. It’s been interesting to see how these things have morphed over time. Since the meeting, I have been approached by several people, some on opposite sides of the issue, for my thoughts on the meeting. I thought I would include some of my responses to them here.
The meeting was ostensibly to hear the Town’s Engineering Firm, Midwest Engineers, Inc., give their assessment of the drainage plans. Some of what was presented was by the developer’s attorney though, so there may have been some honest miscommunication. That said, it wasn’t corrected by the engineer. As a disclaimer here, I have not seen the drainage study, final plat, or construction plans, so I can only speak to what was presented.
Thoughts on the drainage:
Thoughts on size:
Thoughts on traffic:
Thoughts on costs:
These are the main points and I think I will leave it here. If something else comes up, that I think should be mentioned, I may make some edits.
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