"Has it been a good month or what? Wow!”
That's what Knox County Development Corp. president Kent Utt excitedly asked his board of directors Friday morning as they kicked off their monthly meeting at Vincennes University's Isaac K. Beckes Student Union.
And more good things, Utt said, are still to come.
Utt looked back at a month full of excitement, from both the county council and city council's approval to help the KCDC fund the purchase of 50 acres in the U.S. 41 Industrial Park to Pioneer Oil Co.'s grand opening and the announcement that it would be bringing the administrative side Franklin Well Services to downtown Main Street as well.
KCDC also officially closed on the purchase of 50-plus acres in the U.S. 41 Industrial Park, dubbed the Worland property. KCDC, city and county struck a deal to evenly split the $750,000 cost.
Utt said KCDC also bought another acre from adjacent landowner Tony Yochum, who is now deceased, to connect the Worland property to 50 acres purchased last year called the Lewis property.
All together, KCDC now has about 100 acres it hopes to get shovel ready and market to the Indiana Economic Development Corp.
And Utt said he is in talks with Yochum's family members about the possibility of purchasing another 60 acres from his estate.
Utt told board members that KCDC is currently looking to entice to a company working with IEDC for at least 20 acres on which to build a new facility. He said negotiations, at this point, are being kept private, and all he knows is that the interested company specializes in fine blanking, a unique metal forming process.
One of the company's main requests, he said, is to be within at least 50 miles of a steel processor like Gibson County's Millennium Steel, about a 30-40 minute drive south from the industrial park.
“I know we made the first cut, but I really don't know anything more than that," Utt said. "There is more to come, but we won't expect a final decision until the end of July.”
Utt said KCDC has also agreed to be involved in a pilot program with the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs, the organization that gives shovel-ready status to development corporations throughout the state. Previously, the process — which includes plans for utility extension, infrastructure, etc., all to cater to possible industry and business — was tedious and bogged down with paperwork.
OCRA, according to Utt, is looking to implement a more-streamlined application method.
In looking to get this new 100 acres in the U.S. 41 Industrial Park shovel ready, Utt said they will be the first to use the new process.
“It's a big deal,” Utt said, “at least on the industrial development side of things. And it will be great to have that connection, that relationship with OCRA.”
Utt also told his board of directors that he has begun preliminary talks with the IEDC about applying alongside Terre Haute and Indiana State University — as well as other cities along the Wabash River — to be a part of its Regional Cities Initiative.
The process is still new to local officials, Utt said, but the goal would be to secure the Regional Cities status and, possibly, secure a portion of $84 million that OCRA wants to spend to increase population of the state.
“There is more to come on that,” Utt said, “but you get excited about those kinds of possibilities.”
KCDC chairman Heath Klein called it a “long shot,” but definitely one worth taking.
“We have so much going for us right now,” he said. “It could be a big, big thing.”
Such a large grant, Utt said, would require a local match and investment from the private sector as well.
Utt said the deadline for the joint application is Aug. 30.