BY DOUG LEDUC, Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly
dougl@fwbusiness.com
Economic development in Wells County is about to take a dramatic turn, which advocates believe will sustain its effectiveness and increase the support it receives from business and community leaders.
Wells County Chamber of Commerce/Economic Development is putting together a new five-year plan to grow employment in the county. The plan will be implemented starting next year by new leadership through a more focused organizational structure that is likely to be a striking departure from the past.
Garry Jones, 64, is the group's chief executive officer. His wife, Connie Prible-Jones, plans to retire when her term as Wells County assessor expires at the end of the month.
Jones recently announced he would retire next year, too, so that job responsibilities won't restrict the couple's freedom.
"I'll be here until there's a replacement and the plan's together; I've not set a date," he said.
Jones has been leading economic development in the county since 2000, and during his tenure the county has seen companies invest in two of the biggest projects ever added to its property- tax base: an $80-million power plant and a $177-million ethanol plant. A second, $110-million ethanol plant also has been proposed for the county.
The projects were attracted to the county because of its excellent work force, rail service and utilities infrastructure, particularly its natural-gas lines, he said.
Rail service in the county is provided by Norfolk Southern Corp. and Wabash Central Railroad Corp. Northern Indiana Public Service Co. and Panhandle Energy Co. supply its natural gas.
Those selling points, along with the county's location and quality of life, have helped it attract a diverse array of well-paying industrial employers, Jones said.
Among major markets within half a day's drive, the county is only 220 miles from Cleveland, 180 miles from Chicago and Detroit, 120 miles from Toledo and 110 miles from Indianapolis.
Air transportation is within a 20-minute drive, at Fort Wayne International Airport. And when discussing quality of life, officials often point out that Indiana's second-largest city is just across the county line to the north for any retailing, entertainment, academic or medical offerings not available in Bluffton.
Bluffton is the county seat and home to about 9,500, or slightly less than one-third of the Wells County population. The city's Bluffton Regional Medical Center is among the best hospitals for its size in the state.
The biggest event of the decade for Wells County retailing took place when Wal-Mart opened one of its Supercenters there in 2000. The previous year, the Chamber had flown in Jon Schallert of Schallert & Associates Retail Consultants for a presentation to help prepare merchants for competition with Wal-Mart.
The opening of the giant store at the north end of Bluffton was followed by a lot of retail development in the area, including the location of a Lowe's home-improvement store there three years later and the relocation about the same time of a Walgreens drug store to the area from the city's south side.
Use was found for most of the space that opened up when stores relocated or went out of business in the face of the new competition, and Suzanne Huffman, Chamber manager, said Bluffton today has "a vibrant downtown; almost all our stores are filled."
Officials looking at Chamber arrangement
Huffman and Jones said the county's economic development has been run by its Chamber partly because an area's employment growth can support expansion of its retailing and other forms of commerce.
But some key funding sources for economic development say those efforts could be improved if the Chamber operated in a way that made it easier to understand how it is using resources for that work.
Kevin Woodward is a Wells County commissioner appointed to a group that the commission has assigned to look into the matter. The county provides the Chamber with $65,000 a year for economic development, and if that is to continue, "we have to have some structure put in place that isn't there," he said.
"I know there's talk that there needs to be a little more separation between the Chamber and economic development," Woodward said. "There will be things changing over there sooner rather than later, probably within the first month of next year."
He said he may recommend that the county and cities within it contract with the Chamber to provide economic development services.
"If we're going to fund this (economic development) person, we need to have some say in what's taking place."
Bluffton last month rescinded an ordinance that has provided the Chamber with $35,000 each year in County Economic Development Income Tax funds.
Bluffton Mayor Ted Ellis said the action would not put the Chamber's economic development activity in a funding crunch until late in 2007, and he is confident a deal will be struck to restore funding by then.
"Probably the odds-on favorite is a contract with the Chamber again, with just a little different governing board for economic development and a little different segregation of duties and accounting function," he said. "We can save a little time and money if they can operate in the same building and with the same structure."
Woodward said economic development activity in the county came under greater scrutiny after Jones invested personally in Indiana Bio Energy.
He said that caused another ethanol producer to go around Wells County's point person for economic development when it was seeking information on potential sites for plant construction.
"They didn't feel comfortable talking to an economic development director who was an investor and director with Indiana Bio Energy," Woodward said. "They probably didn't want to show their hand."
Several city and county officials were uncomfortable with the amount of public support initially sought for the Indiana Bio Energy project, he said.
The plant was going to be financed with a conventional loan, bonds, local investors, a state grant and other funding. Bluffton and Wells County were asked to guarantee $800,000 a year in debt payments for up to 26 years if the company defaulted. IBE officials said that was necessary to secure the remainder of the financing package.
The proposal for the county's piece of the financing package failed to gain approval after several public officials expressed reservations about the risk of the debt payment guarantee.
"Three months later, they went out and got their money (from private sources) and they went ahead with it," Woodward said.
Capitalizing on county's strengths
The five-year economic development plan for the county will reflect a change in accountability, and because it will be implemented by Jones' successor, Woodward said the next director should contribute to it.
"I'd like to see us get a little more specific and begin to target industries that we feel are a good fit with our community," Ellis said.
"Over the years, our economic development has kind of taken the broad-brush or buckshot approach, in that we'll take anyone who looks fondly at us. As we recruit business, we need to find those that are a very good fit.
The Chamber has contacted Ball State University's Center for Community and Economic Development for help with working up the county's five-year plan, and wants to involve regional marketing and economic development groups in the process, Jones said.
Collaboration with groups in other counties is important, because when companies "are looking for (an operations) site, they don't pick a town or county, they pick a region," he said.
"It's geographic: They're looking either to be closer to the customers or closer to the inputs - the raw materials and suppliers."
In additional to regionalism, Jones said the plan is likely to include strategies for expanding business clusters it already has a good start on, such as the food processing industry, particularly snack foods.
The cluster includes: Ossian Smoked Meats, a meat processor; Dawn Food Products, which makes pastry products; and two snack plants, operated by Pretzels and The Inventure Group.
All of the plants are preparing to handle new products or expand production capacity, or are making the most of upgrades undergone since early last year.
In Bluffton, the Inventure Group plant makes snack products sold under brands such as T.G.I. Fridays, Tato Skins, Panda Express and Cinnabon; the Cinnabon cookies and Panda products were added in 2005.
In Ossian, Ossian Smoked Meats expects to invest next year in an expansion of its fully cooked food service, which includes hot-dog, smoked sausage, bacon and ham products, said Peter Sorg, president. An announcement with more details is expected soon.
"A couple of food-service distributors, they're approaching us to provide those products for them," Sorg said. "We do quite a large food-service business right now, but we've landed some new accounts, and they're going to considerably jump up our tonnage and production."
At Ossian Industrial Park, Dawn Food is investing $2 million in an expansion projected, which will result in 40 additional employees, and Pretzels is spending close to that amount to add a production line.
The park had plant space open last month at a facility Johnson Controls closed after losing its contract to make seats for pickup trucks assembled in southwest Allen County. But a sale of the property is pending, and economic development officials expect an announcement soon on its return to manufacturing use.
About 60 of the park's 180 acres are unoccupied, and Gene Donaghy, president of Ossian Development Corp., said an additional 130 acres could be added to it easily.
Ossian Development plans to seek the state's "Shovel Ready" certification for the park, which could give it an additional edge in competition to attract industrial employers, said Donaghy, who also is vice president for energy service with Northeastern Rural Electric Membership Corp.
The state's Shovel Ready Program was designed to lower the cost of site development, improve efficiency of state permitting and make sites more marketable. It reduces some potential risks of investing in and improving new land by providing much of the information site selectors need prior to development.
Certified sites will be highlighted on the Indiana Economic Development Corp.'s Site Section Database, an online resource that allows site selection consultants and businesses to research available commercial and industrial properties. Officials said use of a "Shovel Ready" site could cut permitting time by up to 30 percent.