By LISA ALLEN, Herald Bulletin
Despite a flurry of contentious e-mails Friday night between Anderson native Gary Hoover in Texas, city economic consultant Greg Winkler in Indiana and Remy International CEO Tom Snyder in Hong Kong, neither Hoover nor Snyder could convince Anderson Mayor Kevin Smith that a plan to build a museum/amusement/tourism mecca in former General Motors Plant 18 would be a boon to the city.
They couldn’t even get the mayor to talk with them. So Hoover gave up. He announced Wednesday that he’ll open the first StoryStore in Austin, Texas.
The mayor is fine with that. He said Wednesday that the city has a bold, comprehensive plan for 500 acres of GM property in the middle of Anderson that would create far more jobs, at higher wages, than Hoover’s proposal. Smith said if the city agreed to Hoover’s plan, it would have derailed the bigger project to redevelop the central city. Anderson officials have been working with GM for years to transfer control of GM’s property to the city.
But the move to Texas leaves behind a host of community leaders, under the umbrella of Anderson 2025, who had their hearts set on a new economic direction for Anderson.
For months, Smith refused to negotiate with Hoover, deflecting him to Rob Sparks, chairman of the Board of Public Works.
Hoover first proposed a tourism attraction in Anderson in 2002. Since then, the idea blossomed into StoryStores, a vision of a nationwide chain of retail-education-entertainment facilities that would “immerse the visitor in an engaging experience. Our mantra is PLAY-LEARN-EAT-SHOP,” according to a recent prospectus. Hoover attracted 20 of Anderson’s elite to invest $230,000 in the project.
Hoover says his exhaustive marketing research shows that there is room for 200 such spots across the United States. He wanted to put the first one, a travel-themed RoadStory USA, in Anderson, specifically in the former GM Plant 18 on Scatterfield Road.
Hoover tried again Oct. 8 to e-mail Smith.
“I have been in continuing conversations with potential investors about StoryStores,” Hoover wrote. “While I have raised about $30 million for my prior ventures, I don’t believe I have ever gotten so much enthusiasm at such an early stage of development.
“As you know, we are at the point of the process where we need to know whether the City of Anderson is wholeheartedly behind this project or not. It is important to StoryStores to locate the first operation in a place that wants us.
“One of the great appeals of Anderson is the availability of an historically authentic automotive industry building which could readily be converted to our needs, and the opportunity to develop the surrounding land in ways congruent with our educational/tourism/retail mission. If this property were made available to us on an attractive enough basis, it might justify our investors investing their millions in this first StoryStore in Anderson. I hope we can talk soon so that we might resolve this issue in one direction or the other. Our enterprise must move onward.”
Smith replied with a terse e-mail telling Hoover to talk to Sparks.
Entrepreneurs take note
Smith’s stonewalling scares Pete Bitar, CEO of XADS, a high-tech start-up at Flagship Enterprise Center.
“As an entrepreneur myself, things have gone pretty well for us. The city’s politics haven’t affected us to this point,” said Bitar, adding that he worries what would happen if his company wants to do anything bold or creative in the future.
“It concerns me to see this apathy or de facto rejection of new ideas. I’m concerned about the message it sends ... especially the way it was handled. If there was a dialogue and a process that at the end everyone decided this wasn’t going to work, that’s one thing.
“We’re back to finding this giant GM again,” Bitar said, referring to Smith’s recent trip to Japan to try to lure Toyota to Anderson. “It concerns me that our city government is doing this to create this barrier to new ideas. Is that going to be the way new ideas are going to be handled from now on?”
“We never caught their imagination,” Hoover said of Anderson’s administration. “We never got them believing and grasping it. We really needed an enthusiastic support from the city.
“We had a lot of people who understood what we were trying to do. In Indiana, people look to factory and automotive jobs. It doesn’t reflect the present and the future.
“The city knew they would end up with those properties for years,” Hoover said. “They wanted us to put together a plan first. That’s not going to work for an entrepreneur.”
Bitar also was surprised that Smith responded as he did, given the people involved in the project.
“They are the past, present and the future of Anderson. Gary was very smart in who he asked to get involved,” Bitar said.
“He’s one of the most prolific researchers I’ve ever known. I’m concerned that the city is just going to write off the idea without doing any research of their own” or explaining themselves.
Several investors said high-ranking people inside city government told them they supported Hoover’s plan, but couldn’t get Smith to consider it.
“Anderson 2025 was a unique opportunity to transform the city from a GM refugee to a national attraction, with local investors solidly behind it,” said Tom Snyder. “The city has chosen the traditional path — matching Anderson property with ‘out of town’ money. With our location on I-69, there is little risk in the city’s strategy. But will it transform this community?”
Wednesday afternoon, Hoover was already combing Austin for sites for his RoadStory USA.
Hoover’s idea was warmly received in Texas, he said. “Once I’m down here, people are on it right away. They have a lot of data on tourism. It’s a real pro-entrepreneurial environment down here.”
It contrasts to Anderson, he said.
“We never got a formal response from the city,” Hoover said. “We had informal conversations. They knew we were up against a deadline to get investors.
“In the end, whatever. The administration didn’t react. We gave them months and months. It finally hit that time that I couldn’t wait any longer.
“We’re going to go full speed ahead in Texas.”
Prepared for the heat
Smith’s refusal to consider the plan incensed Hoover’s supporters.
“It sickens me to think what we have lost,” said Pam Coletti, an early and eager Hoover supporter. “Civic leaders have nurtured this project and supported Gary Hoover’s work on it for three years. Now, some city other than Anderson will be the beneficiary. We still believe in Gary Hoover’s vision. We respect his amazingly thorough research and his vast experience. Most of the investment in RoadStory USA came from right here in Anderson because we saw great economic potential for our city, because the research supported it with numbers and because it was a natural fit for Anderson. I can’t imagine why the mayor did not embrace this with wide open arms. I am hugely, hugely disappointed and upset.”
Mayor Smith anticipated the wrath from the group, but is sticking with his broad plan.
“(Hoover) wanted 80 acres of the best acres,” said Rob Sparks, chairman of the Board of Public Works and point person between the administration and Gary Hoover.
Sparks said Hoover wanted the city to give his group the property, plus a five-year option on Plant 11.
“Gary said he needed all of that acreage to reduce the risk of the investment,” Sparks said. “We can’t just convey them the land.”
“GM is looking for the same thing we were, a holistic exit strategy,” Smith said, adding that they want the property to be developed overall, not just a parcel here, a parcel there.
Investors lament what could have been.
“There are two truths,” one investor said. He declined to be identified for fear of possible repercussions from the mayor. “Nothing was guaranteed with GM. Two, had the administration given a ringing endorsement, it could have gotten through the bureaucracy.”
He listed several parties involved with Anderson 2025 who have pull at the auto giant: retired GM executive Jim Ault, Remy’s Rick Stanley and Tom Snyder and former GM executive Bill Wylam.
It appears much of the anger from those supporting Hoover’s plan is rooted in darkness — the mayor, several said, has never laid out his plan for the GM property.
“I wish he would have shared that with us,” said Tom Snyder.
“The loss of the Gary Hoover project to this community is beyond comprehension,” Ralph Day, director of the Madison County Visitors and Convention Bureau, wrote to a mushrooming list of e-mail recipients. “To have an individual of Gary Hoover’s credentials bring this project to our city, and place it on our door step, one has to ask why it was allowed to get away. This was a project that resulted from thinking outside the box. Is our community to continue inside the box?”
Smith, Sparks and Winkler said they have been tight-lipped about their plans for the GM properties while negotiations are under way.
The city just met Wednesday with its legal team to discuss confidentiality agreements between the city and GM, particularly concerning environmental assessments of the land. It’s one more step toward transferring the property to city control.
Advice from a ‘serial entrepreneur’
In a five-point letter of advice to the community, Hoover said Anderson’s asset is its historic architecture, which it can parlay into a tourism draw.
“Our last observation would be that Indiana, and Anderson in particular, sorely needs homegrown entrepreneurship,” Hoover wrote in a letter to the people of Anderson.
“The community has a history of looking ‘outside’ for help — whether that be the state government, the Lilly Endowment Inc., or the auto giants from Detroit. But we forget that even Lilly, GM and Toyota started as entrepreneurial ventures in someone’s head. Anderson has a number of promising local ventures, and the opening of the Flagship Enterprise Center was a major step in the right direction. But those entrepreneurial ventures will not thrive, or they will move to more conducive locations, if they are not supported and encouraged in every way.
“The city government has gotten more conservative because of the failures, like Fortune Management,” said Hoover, who describes himself as a serial entrepreneur. “You can’t give up on that. You can’t continually look to the outside.”
“We are extremely disappointed that Anderson cannot be the first location for a StoryStore,” said Mary Starkey, interim director of the Corporation for Economic Development. “The time it has taken this community to obtain control of the GM properties is an ongoing challenge.
“The fact that Gary has left the door open to future development gives us a glimmer of hope.”
Hoover’s plan called for a $4 million investment in Anderson and a payroll of $1 million to $1.5 million for 35 full-time jobs.
Are service jobs good enough?
But Winkler said the city has already shown to three investors Plant 18. Those businesses, all call center and data management firms, would create 400 to 700 jobs paying $10-$15 per hour in the same spot, Winkler said.
Hoover believes the city discounted his plan because it includes service jobs that they believe don’t pay well.
“The mayor, Dr. Edwards at AU, the governor, they are all service workers,” Hoover said. “We’re gong to pay far beyond typical retail wages, up to 50 percent more. We’re really going to focus on outstanding customer service, after the Costco model.
“There are going to be less manufacturing jobs in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan in 20 years. Everyone’s going to be chasing after a smaller, and smaller pie.”
Bobbette Snyder, director of Leadership Academy of Madison County, was also an investor in Hoover’s plan.
“Madison County is filled with skilled people, interested and active people, committed people,” she said. “We want the chance to create a future with StoryStores and the old GM plants that is a regional phenomena so that when Pew Partnerships write about communities, we will be one of their success stories — a community filled with many leaders of all ages willing to use their assets and take civic action to build a better tomorrow. We want to re-create an American success story here in Madison County, Central Indiana.
“In Leadership Academy we vision for our future in Madison County. How do you tell a group of people that the exercise is a waste of time?”
She quoted Joel Barker, who said “Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes time. Vision with action can change the world.”
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