The Manchester Early Learning Center became the first Wabash County project to be approved for Regional Cities Initiative funding on Tuesday.
The North Manchester-area daycare is expected to receive $520,000 from the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership, whose governing board approved the MELC’s request at a meeting in Warsaw on Tuesday.
“One of the real needs in the region is quality childcare,” Jeff Turner, board president to the Northeast Indiana Regional Development Authority, said. “One of the real needs that families have is a place for quality childcare and Manchester brought forth a wonderful proposal on how they can help solve that problem in the Manchester community.”
Students with the Manchester Church of Brethren youth group launched a fundraising campaign in the fall of 2014 to help the MELC relocate its daycare facility in response to an ever-growing enrollment waitlist.
More than $2 million has since been raised, while construction on the new facility is underway and expected to be completed by February.
“They were asking for sticks and bricks projects to be completed within two years and we fit that category very nicely,” North Manchester Town Council President Jim Smith, who attended Tuesday’s meeting, said.
Wabash County joins a short list of communities with projects approved by the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership to receive a share of the region’s $42 million in Regional Cities funding.
Of the seven projects approved thus far, nearly half will benefit Fort Wayne, the region’s largest city.
The proposed Skyline Tower apartment complex became the first project to win the regional partnership’s approval despite not being included in the original “Road to One Million” Regional Cities application. A total of $2.8 million in Regional Cities funding is expected for the project, which will construct a high-rise housing development in downtown Fort Wayne.
Projects in Huntington County, DeKalb County and Angola have been approved as well.
All of the projects are focused on “quality of life” enhancements that specifically target Millenials in an effort to grow the region’s population to 1 million residents by 2031.
Keith Gillenwater, president and CEO of the Economic Development Group of Wabash County, told the Plain Dealer last year that the population-focused economic plan is a necessity for Wabash County, which has seen a net decline in residents for decades.
Gillenwater said that he sees the MELC project as an integral way to address the county’s population woes by providing working parents with high-quality, state-regulated daycare.
“I personally faced this problem when our family moved to Wabash early last summer, so I know the frustration parents can feel,” Gillenwater advised the Plain Dealer on Tuesday.
Five other Wabash County projects were included in Northeast Indiana’s “Road to One Million” application, but it remains to be seen whether they will receive funding through Regional Cities.
The MELC’s application will now head to the Indiana Economic Development Corp. for final approval.
Gillenwater said he hopes to bring more applications before the regional development authority sometime in 2017.
Regional Cities funding is quickly depleting, however.
More than $11.8 million has already been awarded and is expected to be approved by the IEDC, which oversees disbursement of funds. Another $3.5 million request was presented to the board on Tuesday by the Warsaw Redevelopment Commission. The regional development authority will decide whether to grant that request at a later meeting.