Southwest Indiana in top tier for Regional Cities Initiative money

The two winners will not be officially named until Dec. 15 by the Indiana Economic Development Corp., but the review committee tasked with recommending the winners decided to narrow the group of seven regions down to three top-tier proposals on Thursday. Along with Southwest Indiana, which includes Vanderburgh, Gibson, Posey and Warrick counties, the committee also selected the proposals from the northeast region and north central region, located in the Fort Wayne and South Bend areas, respectively.

The three regions were considered to be more viable, but John Thompson, chairman of the review committee, said all seven proposals are still on the table.

"It's always nice to know that somebody loves you," Greg Wathen, one of the leaders of the southwest region project, said afterwards. "It's a recognition of the hard work, and maybe more importantly, that the plan we put forth is viable."

Since the Regional Cities program was established by the General Assembly, the idea of the program was to award two separate $42 million grants to two winners. But some of the committee members said they would be in favor of possibly divvying the $84 million amongst three regions.

Mitch Roob, a member of the review committee, said he thought Indiana would get a better value if they gave money to three regions, even if that meant not all of the projects proposed got funded.

"I would really like to see us try to do three," Roob said.

For the last two meetings, committee members have expressed trepidation to awarding money to long-range projects without solid funding. There was discussion Thursday about funding the best projects presented rather than doing it region by region.

"From an expectation standpoint, it's always been about two winners," Jim Schellinger, president of the IEDC, said. "(But) there's nothing statutorily though saying we have to limit it to two winners to my knowledge."

Wathen said the southwest proposal asked for the full $42 million grant. He said if the IEDC decided to split the money three ways, they would have to look at which projects could wait or be funded elsewhere.

"We'll be prepared to make the decisions necessary to say 'OK, here are the ones that are more transformational," he said.

The three regions were chosen, in part because of the high viability each plan had. Most of the projects are not contingent on other funding and can be ready to go within one or two years.

Wathen said their plans, which include adding a research center to the forthcoming Downtown medical school, improving Evansville Regional Airport and adding multi-use housing, would all be ready to go within two years and would all be completed in five years.

The review committee could possibly meet again before the Dec. 15 IEDC board meeting to discuss the decision further.