Local Madison County leaders express optimism about communities' economic development efforts

Chamber President and CEO Clayton Whitson said he believes the optimism is well-founded.

“A few of our elected officials used the term ‘excited,’ and that’s exactly how we’re feeling,” Whitson said. “We love to hear about what’s coming next and how we can rally the troops and get the business community behind it. It’s a lot easier to advance a community and make a better community when everybody’s rowing in the same direction.”

Marissa Skaggs, the president of the Pendleton Town Council, said the town’s comprehensive and downtown revitalization plans have been top priorities for administrators this year. Revisions, she said, will be presented for approval at the council’s regular meetings in November and December.

“It has been a lot of work for the town’s planning staff, as well as our consultants, to garner as much public feedback as we can through open houses, online surveys, as well as focus groups, to make sure these guiding documents have the feel of Pendleton,” Skaggs said. “They were created through our community.”

Pendleton recently adopted Indiana’s Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area policy, which allows individuals 21 and older to purchase alcoholic beverages from specific vendors and retail establishments. Those beverages can then be brought outside and consumed within certain DORA-designated boundaries.

Skaggs said so far, the policy has been well-received.

“(DORA) has been met with much enthusiasm,” Skaggs said. “We haven’t had an uptick public safety response or anything like that.”

In the northern part of the county, Elwood Mayor Todd Jones pointed to progress being made on rehabilitating the city’s blighted properties, as well as infrastructure improvements that he said will continue to attract commerce to the area.

“We are going to continue to invest in our infrastructure,” Jones said. “When we first took office in 2016 to now, we’ve torn down 150 properties. This year, we earmarked 17 properties that could either be torn down or be rehabbed. Ten of those have been rehabbed and have put an extra $1.5 million in the assessed value for the city.”

Anderson University President Scott Moats, who also spoke during the event’s second panel, said he appreciated an opportunity to share the university’s vision for the future and connect it to measures already being considered to improve quality of life in the area.

Moats said partnerships and collaborations with the community help the university grow.

“Partnership and collaboration is very important to me as we begin to look at how Anderson (University) can serve Madison County,” Moats said. “I think it’s important that people understand that we no longer can afford to sit back and wait for people to come to us.

“We want to go to them, we want to serve our community, and I believe that if the whole county rises, we all win.”

Moats said the university is planning to launch new graduate programs that will be announced in the near future.