Nila WIlliams, who grew up on Michigan City's west side, wants to see the Indiana State Prison removed and replaced with housing that residents can afford. Staff photo by Doug Ross
MICHIGAN CITY — Residents of the city’s East Side, West Side and Midtown neighborhoods offered ideas on ways to improve the quality of life in their own areas as the city drafts a three-year improvement plan.
The plan is being developed by the Brookings Institution and Local Initiatives Support Corp. Michigan City, Seymour and Warsaw, all in Indiana, are the first small cities nationwide for this effort, said Josh Anderson, of Anderson and Bohlander, who facilitated Thursday night’s session.
“We’re the guinea pigs,” he said.
“You’ll be receiving national attention through this process,” Anderson added.
The station block building coming to Michigan City with the Double Track NWI project incorporates a new train station and parking garage but also residential and commercial uses. That project is lighting an economic development fuse that promises to bring hundreds of millions of dollars of private investment downtown. That includes the $240 million SoLa – for South of the Lake – mixed-use development adjacent to City Hall.
“We’re really looking at the more disinvested communities around there,” Anderson said, to make sure they aren’t left out, he said.
Indiana is preparing for a second round of READI — Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative — grants. “They want you to be competitive in that,” Anderson said.
The team looking at Michigan City has already dived into demographic data. The East Side, West Side and Midtown neighborhoods have 26% of the city’s jobs, but unemployment is higher.
Anderson encouraged attendees to list strengths, weaknesses and ideas. They eagerly responded.
“We don’t have an inpatient mental health facility,” pointed out Brenda Stellema. She placed a Post-It note on the Franciscan Health property on Homer Street to flag a possible location.
Nila Williams grew up in the West Side neighborhood. Attending the meeting at the H.O.P.E. Center brought back memories for her. The building was the former Park Elementary School, which she attended. Park is one of several schools closed after enrollment declined.
“I would love to see something else going on in this building,” Williams said, adding youth-oriented programs, the arts and black history lessons to what already goes on there.
“I don’t like the prison, obviously, but we grew up with that,” Williams said. She would like to see the prison removed and affordable housing put up in its place.
“There’s a food desert over here,” Williams added. She wants residents to have easy access to healthy foods like fresh fruits and vegetables without having to drive to the city’s south side, where the large supermarkets are.
Realtor Erica Miller, an East Side resident, agreed about the need for fresh produce on her side of the city. “There’s so much that we lack on the East Side,” she said. “We lack vibrant businesses” and walkability, she said. Crossing Franklin Street downtown is easy, but Michigan Boulevard is harder to cross.
Miller hopes the new Dunkin Donuts will attract other businesses to her neighborhood.
Tommy Kulavik’s ideas included adding an I-94 interchange at County Line Road.
Another resident suggested an independent study program in conjunction with the AK Smith Career Center and Ivy Tech Community College for students to learn shoe repair and other trades that seem to be in decline.
“I think one of the barriers is transportation,” a resident said, with bus service ending too early for a lot of people to ride to and from work.
Mayor Duane Parry was pleased with the event. “It’s overdue,” he said. “It’s needed if we’re going to go forward.”
Events like this help him keep in touch with people in the community, he added.
Michigan City Economic Development Corp. Executive Director Clarence Hulse is excited about the program. “You don’t know how fortunate I feel to have two major nonprofits in our backyard,” he said.
“We’ve got some of the highest poverty around downtown,” he said, and he doesn’t want people pushed out of their homes.
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