Millions of dollars in projects have received funding in southern Indiana through the state’s Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative (READI). The Indiana Uplands organization approved funding for everything from parks to pavilions, and infrastructure to housing.
One large chunk of that money, $10 million, is headed to the Daviess County section of the WestGate@Crane Technology Park to help provide infrastructure for the new Westgate 1 microelectronics campus. “It is going to have a significant impact on the region as a whole. We hope we can get a lot for that,” said Bryant Niehoff, executive director for the Daviess County Economic Development Corp. “The announcement here has sent a ripple throughout the region. To have that kind of growth, we have to put the infrastructure in place to support it. The type of work, the sophistication of work that is going to be happening at the facility means it is critical that there be infrastructure upgrades to the tech park, to serve the Westgate 1 facility and potential further growth.”
While the focus of the $10 million is on Daviess County, READI officials point out that what will be happening will help other counties in the tech park including Martin and Greene.
“We are talking water, sewer, power upgrades and roads,” said Niehoff. “That $10 million is vital to the project. I am so grateful to the many partners that came together to make this project a reality. We are talking infrastructure upgrades that far exceed what any one municipality or any one single local government entity can put together. That injection of cash from READI makes this project very doable for the region.”
While the infrastructure upgrade for Westgate 1 may be the biggest single project in the Indiana Uplands READI work, there are a number of other items expected to receive funding. Among them $249,999 for the Daviess County 4-H Association to develop a new County Youth Expo Center and $150,000 for an all-inclusive playground at Longfellow Park being sought by the Washington Free Methodist Church Comforting Hearts.
“There are some quality of place dollars that are going in to support the youth of our community.
“The 4-H campus at the fairgrounds is one and the Comforting Hearts all-inclusive playground at Longfellow Park is another one,” said Niehoff.
Martin County will also be the recipient of some of the quality of place money through the READI program. A grant of $225,000 will go toward a project to put a pavilion in downtown Loogootee.
Officials point out that since Loogootee has only one city park, the pavilion will provide green space, sidewalks and lighting to downtown and help provide a gathering spot in the community.
“That is huge for the downtown area. It will clean up the area. It will be a place for people to gather. We can host more events. It’s going to provide people with more reasons to visit the downtown area. I think it will help our businesses and bring additional traffic to the downtown area. It is going to be a great thing for the community,” said Jessica Potts with the Martin County Alliance for Economic Growth, who points out that the project dovetails well with other efforts underway to improve downtown Loogootee.
“It is going to give us some momentum. There are several groups working on enhancing the downtown area and bringing more people to our store fronts.”
Besides the funding for those specific projects, Daviess and Martin counties will be part of multi-county projects, like the $200,000 for Youth First to help build a resiliency in youth program. The program puts counselors and social workers in schools in the 11-county area to work with students.
“This is going to make a difference for our kids. It is important for our students to have that trusted person they can go to with whatever troubles or issues they are facing. We are thrilled to have that in our school system,” said Potts.
There is also more than $2 million in educational funding through the Mill and Regional Opportunities Initiative to provide additional STEM education throughout the region.
Those are programs that are still being developed and piloted in several schools throughout the region.
“The UpSkill Work and Learn through the Regional Opportunity Initiatives, they are taking the apprenticeship model and work based learning model and adding tons of resources to magnify that impact. It has been very successful in a few schools where it has been attempted,” said Niehoff.
“From a workforce and skill development standpoint we are seeing so much great work that is being done in the work-partnership space already, but bringing is ROI and Workforce Development to be part of that and amplify it, I am very excited about.”
“We can do some good things with this,” added Potts. “Indiana, as a whole, is working on workforce development down into middle school and elementary schools. We have STEM in all of our school systems. We have Crane in our backyard, we are really working toward higher skills in our region and specifically in Martin County.”
The Indiana Uplands Organization includes Brown, Greene, Monroe, Orange, Spencer, Lawrence, Crawford, Dubois, Owen and Washington counties in addition to Martin and Daviess counties.
Some of the other projects include almost $2 million in infrastructure improvements to assist Catalent Industries in Bloomington, $3.75 million in housing projects in Jasper, Spencer, and French Lick, $250,000 for water improvements in Owen County, $250,000 for water and sewer upgrades in downtown Jasper, $247,000 for the West Baden Park, $100,000 for the Bloomfield Park, and $229,000 for upgrades to the Brown County Early Education program.
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