A joint application by Knox County elected officials and their counterparts in Vincennes and Bicknell to be designated as the state’s first regionally-focused Stellar Community has made the first cut.
Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch on Thursday announced that Knox County’s application, dubbed “A Region Plus,” was one of six selected as finalists for the 2018 Stellar Communities Program.
“It’s just fantastic that we’ve been able to cooperate on a project of this size and work toward a common goal,” said Bicknell Mayor Thomas Estabrook. “You don’t always get that in layers of government. But everyone’s involved, and we all want the same thing, which is to continue to work on an application that is the best it can be.”
Estabrook also pointed out that the county’s joint application is the only one south of Intestate 70.
“So I hope we can be the shining stars of southern Indiana by the time the decision is made,” he said.
County council president Bob Lechner, too, called this level of cooperation between the county, Vincennes and Bicknell “unprecedented.”
“We’re all really working together to make this a better place to live,” he said.
As finalists, each region will now receive a planning grant to build their regional plans, i.e. the quality of life improvements they would make if selected as the Stellar winner.
Final designees will then be selected at the end of the year.
Vincennes, on its own, applied for Stellar last year but lost out to Madison.
Mayor Joe Yochum has said the city of Vincennes would look largely to downtown improvements named in last year’s application, which included an expansion of the Riverwalk as well as a transformation of the Gimbel Corner into an urban park.
Stellar applications must also include some sort of housing component, and this time around, the 2018 application looks to Bicknell as officials there have multiple lots already cleared by the recent demolition of eyesore homes. With money from the state's Hardest Hit Blight Elimination Fund, Bicknell has torn down more than 20 dilapidated, abandoned houses. Estabrook said he hopes to use those lots to build both the city's housing stock and, in turn, its tax base.
“We live in a county that is vibrant with good amenities yet we continually have conversations about a shortage in our housing stock,” Estabrook said Thursday. “This project has the ability to put us in a better place, especially for those middle income folks looking to find good housing.”
Lechner said the county looks forward to working with Bicknell on the housing piece of the application, believing Bicknell the best suited for such a project.
The county will also, Lechner said, develop a plan to turn the old rail line between Vincennes and Bicknell — one that runs parallel with Indiana 67 — into a hiking and biking trail.
“And we’ll keep our eyes and ears open for more opportunities as we go along,” Lechner said.
Other regions selected were the “Health and Heritage Region” comprised of Greenfield and Fortville, as well as “Eastern Indiana,” a cooperative effort between the cities of Richmond, Rushville and Union and Randolph counties.
“Marshall County Crossroads” is comprised of Elkhart and St. Joseph counties, and the “Mt. Comfort Road Corridor” is made up of Cumberland, McCordsville and New Palestine.
Rounding out the six regions is the “New Allen Alliance,” an joint application between Allen County, the towns of Grabill, Leo-Cedarville and Monroeville and the cities of New Haven and Woodburn.
The Stellar Community Program is a multi-agency partnership designed, at least in the beginning, to recognize smaller Hoosier communities that have identified plans for quality of life and economic development improvements. Since its inception in 2011, the state has awarded nearly $90 million to communities, including Princeton, Huntingburg and Bedford.