20/20 Vision is what I’m dubbing my attempts to get Culver on track for a new Comprehensive Plan. Judging from the last one which has taken a little over 10 years to revise, shooting for a plan that would lay out goals for completion by the year 2020 seems like the place to start.
I’ve been pushing for this for a while. (See here as well as a couple of other times.) At the September Culver Plan Commission meeting I was rewarded punished for my diligent nagging by being appointed to a committee of one to look into it. Hopefully this will be expanded to a larger group in the future, but I was asked to get things moving.
Marshall County is holding another Community Conversation this November 16th at Swan Lake Resort. This year’s conversation is titled 21st Century Workforce Readiness – Education, Industry and Workforce Development: The Ties that Bind. Everyone is encouraged to participate. Below is the announcement flyer and a registration form. Join the Conversation!!!
This is the second revelation meeting which I had through the Marshall County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC) that I mentioned in a previous post here. Bob Ady is President of Ady International Company and is a site selector. He came here as part of the Ady-Voltage team that is working with MCEDC on a marketing program. As part of this MCEDC hosted a meeting with stakeholders to help them get first impressions of Marshall County. The stakeholders at the meeting seemed pretty positive about Marshall County, but it was interesting reading some of the written feedback, which was a little more mixed. After the stakeholder meeting, Jennifer Laurent, MCEDC Executive Director, and Janet Ady, President of Ady-Voltage, went on site visits to existing businesses. I was to take Bob on a tour of the county looking at the properties that we had available.
Jennifer had prepared a list of properties from our data base for Bob to review. He first reviewed them on paper with me and eliminated ¾ of them just based on their age, interior clear height and other criteria. He said most of them might be adequate for that “one-in-one-hundred inquiry looking for something specific”, but in general they would not interest anyone from outside the area.
From there we took our road tour. We looked at sites around Plymouth including PIDCO properties and Vanco Development properties such as the Tech Farm. We went to Culver and looked at the sites in their industrial zone. We did the same for Argos, Bourbon, Bremen and LaPaz. Of those Bob only found interest in three sites and of those, the PIDCO site was the only one that had true potential.
The reasons for eliminating the other sites were things that I suspected, but it was interesting to hear from an outside perspective:
The property was not actually for sale, i.e. it didn’t have an asking price set and in some cases there were contingencies to a sale.
The property was ill defined, i.e. the only map available was a Google Earth representation or worse, just a Google Map with a “pin” for the location.
The utilities were not available or unclear as to capacity.
The data base information was incomplete or suspect.
In our tour we drove by other properties that Bob and I discussed that weren’t on the list. The resounding question was, “Why?” Why hadn’t the appropriate municipality approached those property owners about pursuing proper zoning? Why hadn’t infrastructure been extended to those areas to encourage growth? Why were we settling for attempting to market substandard properties (for some of the reasons listed above) when we could be working to create better opportunities. (More competition might also motivate the existing sellers.)
I look forward to seeing how our new marketing program is fleshed out, but it was painfully obvious after that day that one of our problems is a lack of marketable product…
Last month I had some interesting interactions due to my position with Marshall County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC). First, Charlie Sparks, Vice President, and Kim Rodner, Manager of Operations, from Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) came to visit Marshall County. They were here ostensibly to review sites. Jennifer Laurent, MCEDC Executive Director, and I met with them as representatives of Marshall County Economic Development Corp. They were being shown around our region by Dave Behr, Director of the North Central Region of Indiana Economic Development. We spent about a half hour in the MCEDC office, about 45 minutes touring some sites around Plymouth and then about another half hour over lunch. After that they were visiting other counties in our region.
PIDCO Land For Sale
I found it interesting that while they knew of us, they were not familiar with the sites we had to offer. This is despite various interactions Jennifer (and Tom Turner before her) had with them and despite the various sites we have listed on their website. They were aware of Plymouth Industrial Development Corporation (PIDCO) and some of the work they had done in the past, but they were not aware of the PIDCO property northwest of the U.S. 30/Pioneer Drive intersection. Of the sites we showed them, they found that one the most intriguing and marketable.
As an example of challenges we face, we had a fairly extensive discussion on how we could change the interstate highway criteria that is often included in site locator requests. Apparently requesting sites within 10 miles of an interstate highway is often an eliminator that removes us from consideration. We discussed modifying the way sites are listed to include limited access highways such as U.S. 30 (and as U.S. 31 soon will soon be) in the descriptions.
This is apparently the first time they have done this kind of tour. They are rarely out of the office despite the fact that site selectors often ask them if they have actually seen the site they are considering. They were spending several weeks touring all 94 counties to see what is available. I thought the personal interaction with Jennifer should pay dividends in the future, but only time will tell.
One discouraging note was their discussion of how they pursued projects. They told of a project they recently landed in “The Region” where they received little or no help from the locals, but still managed to locate a project there. This description was frustrating to me considering the amount of effort that Marshall County puts into attracting businesses and working with IEDC. In the end, it comes down to what the business wants and unless you’re selling that, you’re out of luck. IEDC will be our friend and help, but they are tasked with making the sale too, so they will do what they have to so that new business ends up here in lieu of Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, etc.
Overall, I think this was productive and a good connection to make. It was disappointing that there wasn’t time to show them the rest of the county. Hopefully if we have a few sites (or even one!) that stands out in their mind to generate a call, it will get Jennifer’s foot in the door to let them know what else we have when they call.
Check back for a future entry on my day with Bob Ady, a site selector who I showed around Marshall County.
Reverend Liechty and I were the speakers at the Culver Kiwanis meeting last week. We were asked to give an update on Culver Garden Court, a little about the project and a little about the Garden Court organization. I spoke first and gave a brief run down on how long it took to make this project happen in Culver, the problems with finding a site, and the cooperation we received from the Town.
I discussed our progress on the project. (Framing has been completed, roofing is underway, rough-in of plumbing & electrical is underway.) I also discussed the schedule moving forward. I also told them of the other Garden Court projects we have completed in Argos, Bourbon, Knox, Plymouth (Fairfield), Mentone and LaPaz. There is one planned for Napannee if the funding comes through.
Reverend Liechty then spoke on how Garden Court began with their mission to provide affordable housing that they “would be willing to put their grandmother in”. He spoke on their constraints and their plans for the future.
Everything was well received and there were good questions as we went along.
As a quick status update, as of yesterday the windows are installed. Shingles are being installed and were approximately 15% complete yesterday evening. Internally the draft stops have been installed in the attic. The electricians and plumbers are working on their rough-in.
With the completion of the framing, we will be looking at beginning some of the initial site work finishes such as curbs and walks. Asphalt for parking and drives will follow the walks. We will delay the landscaping until later in the year to get out of the extreme heat.
See Jeff Kenney’s reporting on this presentation in the Pilot News here.
20/20 Vision is what I’m dubbing my attempts to get Culver on track for a new Comprehensive Plan. Judging from the last one which has taken a little over 10 years to revise, shooting for a plan that would lay out goals for completion by the year 2020 seems like the place to start.
