Runnebohm Construction continues to make progress at the Julia and Nicholas Runnebohm Early Learning Center, which is expected to open in time for next school year. Ross Flint / TSN photo
The Accelerate Rural Indiana Regional Development Authority heard project updates from across the region during its Friday afternoon board meeting at Greensburg City Hall.
Major updates came from projects in neighboring communities in Shelbyville/Shelby County’s region, which includes Rushville/Rush County, Greensburg/Decatur County, and Batesville; though the board did see a video showing the construction updates for the Julia and Nicholas Runnebohm Early Learning Center.
The biggest update is that the board has disbursed roughly $2.5 million toward the regions projects, said HWC Engineering’s Mason Gordon, the board’s engineering consultant. Gordon said this is 13 percent of the total award the region received from the Indiana Economic Development Corp.
“The most exciting part of this is since we last met, we have $4.5 million of READI disbursements pending in the [IEDC] portal,” Gordon said. “We’ve inserted all $4 million for the Community Center in Rushville. That project will be the recipient of Federal New Markets Tax Credits, which is awesome and finishes out their gap on the budget stack that they had.”
Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative (READI) funding works like a reimbursement. Project contractors will make disbursement requests for the grant funding to the RDA, and the RDA submits that request to IEDC. IEDC grants the funds back into the RDA’s account, which is then sent to the project developers – the RDA does not physically have the $20 million it was awarded.
Rushville’s other project, the Diamond Pet Foods production center, received its final disbursement and is complete. Batesville’s Welding Program and Dual Credit Program are also pending disbursement.
“I reached out to the contractor for the Early Learning Center and requested invoices there,” Gordon said. “He said I’d have an email by the end of the day today (Feb. 12), so hopefully that will be another $3 million, which would put us at $7.5 [million pending disbursement]. Right now we’re sitting at, between pending and disbursed, that’s 36 percent [of our allocation]. If we add another $3 million on top of that, we’ll be sitting close to 50 percent [disbursed or pending disbursement] by the time we submit our READI 2.0 application.”
The READI 2.0 application is due today. This means by Feb. 16, if all went as planned, the Accelerate Rural Indiana region will have disbursed half of the $20 million READI grant funding it received. This is more than any other region in the state, Gordon added.
“I mentioned that to [IEDC] on our call with them this week and they were stunned,” he said. “That’s a great, positive moment right there.”
The Early Learning Center was allocated $3 million in READI funding. Board members watched a video of its construction from the contractor, which is progressing along nicely. The 26,000 square-foot facility will provide 192 seats for children up to to age 6.
“They were only going to build the first phase with the project, but they received another significant investment from Major Health Partners, so now the entire thing is being built,” Gordon said.
The facility is expected to be operational by the fall semester.
Gordon intends to touch base with each community to get updates on all projects once the READI 2.0 application has been submitted.
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