NEW CARLISLE —In recent years, St. Joseph County has invested millions of dollars to develop the rural area near here with the goal of attracting companies and creating jobs.
That trend continued on Tuesday as the county Board of Commissioners voted 2-1 to approve a $2.3 million “master plan” that calls for a variety of work to get the northwest part of the county ready for industrial businesses to set up shop.
The plan calls for hiring seven consulting firms to complete various tasks during the next six months.
Studies will be done, for example, to determine how much water and sewer capacity is available for businesses. Engineering work, meanwhile, will be done for plans that call for building a rail spur and realigning the Niespodziany Ditch along a new utilities corridor so that it doesn’t cross sites that could be attractive to businesses.
The main goal is to have at least three large sites certified by the state as being shovel-ready by mid-2018, said Bill Schalliol, the county’s economic development director.
Schalliol, who noted that several developers are interested in the area, said the county plans to acquire hundreds of acres of property to attract large projects. He said the focus is on catching “big fish.”
“Our goal is to complement the work that South Bend, Mishawaka and other parts of the county are doing,” he said. “It is not to try to lure the 50,000-or 100,000-squarefoot users. This is really land for big-format users that you don’t want in the heart of downtown.”
The New Carlisle area, for example, has been identified by the state as a potential site to attract a $1.6 billion Toyota-Mazda plant. Indiana is among several states that are competing for the 4,000-job facility.