BY DARRELL SMITH, Connersville News-Examiner
dsmith@newsexaminer.com
Fayette County hopes to get it’s share or more of $10 million being offered by the city of Lawrenceburg by applying for aid with infrastructure improvements for a value-added agriculture processing project in the county.
The Fayette County Commissioners approved a resolution Wednesday supporting the grant application to the Ohio River city to receive $4 million of that $10 million for county costs associated with construction of an ethanol plant. Nine southeastern Indiana counties are eligible to apply for the funds Lawrenceburg has received from Argosy Casino for economic development projects.
The economy in Fayette County is in the process of shifting and industries like agriculture, health care, machine tool and logistics and warehousing are gaining importance, said Economic Development Group Executive Director Bill Konyha.
“According to the plan they have laid out, this meets all their criteria as if the program was written for it,” he told the commissioners.
It is regional in economic impact, creates jobs and investment and creates income for producers who will in turn spend it at businesses in the county, he said.
Konyha said he is working with a group of investors to construct the ethanol plant in western Fayette County that he hopes will be part of an agriculture park.
The plant would be a $150 million investment; produce 100 million gallons of the corn-based product annually; directly create 55 high-skill, high-wage jobs and some 1,500 indirect jobs; utilize 40 million bushels of corn annually; and add five cents to the price of a bushel of corn in the area, he said.
“It’s just appears to be a win-win-win situation,” he said. “It’s clean, environmentally friendly, takes advantage of a couple of things we do well — agriculture and manufacturing — and in this case, it seems that the grant money we need is there for the asking.”
The grant applications are due next month.
The commissioners also approved a letter of support for the Indiana Economic Development Corp.’s shovel-ready program. The support is similar to that given Monday by Connersville City Council.
Inclusion in the shovel-ready program will speed up the site permitting process by state agencies, Konyha said. Approved sites will be included in wide-ranging marketing efforts by the state.
Companies today want to have sites ready for construction as soon as possible after a decision to locate is made, he said.
The location of the proposed site is the 58 acres at the northwest corner of Indiana 1 and County Road 450-N. The site currently has natural gas, sewer and water utilities to edge of the site and high-speed wireless Internet, he said.
“We really want to be in the first cycle of 10 sites approved by the state because who knows when the second round of approvals will come,” he said. “We need every competitive edge we can get. There may be a small grant involved with the first round of sites.”