New Land Development Entity to focus on redeveloping brownfields
The Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority’s newly created Land Development Entity kicked off Thursday, aiming to flip brownfields and different troubled properties into redeveloped land.
“I think we have an opportunity to make a transformational difference in Northwest Indiana,” Chairman Rick Calinski, director of public affairs and financial growth at NIPSCO, mentioned.
“We have a lot of momentum, and it’s a perfect time and perfect opportunity,” Treasurer Pete Novak, CEO on the Northwest Indiana Realtors Association, mentioned.
Matt Wells, named secretary, is president and CEO of One Region and chief engagement officer at Purdue University Northwest. He’s enthusiastic about “the unique window of opportunity that Northwest Indiana has right now.”
“The missing piece that will be solved in large part” is fragmentation sprawled throughout the area’s geography, he mentioned.
Households and companies shall be much more inclined than they already are to put money into the proper properties in the proper location as soon as brownfields are cleaned up and parcels of land assembled for redevelopment, Wells mentioned.
RDA President and CEO Sherri Ziller serves as CEO of the Land Development Entity as nicely. Identifying brownfields and funding to clear them is a prime precedence for the LDE and the RDA, she mentioned.
That’s low-hanging fruit within the GDR’s new 20-year strategic plan, she mentioned.
“We can acquire and stabilize challenging properties,” Ziller mentioned, and work together with the RDA, Indiana Department of Environmental Management, US Environmental Protection Agency and others to safe grant funding for redevelopment efforts.
Returning nonproductive properties to the tax rolls, creating jobs and rising the standard of life are solely a few of the advantages of redeveloping troubled properties.
“Through our research, there’s a lot of brownfields that have been identified in our region,” marketing consultant Aaron Kowalski of MKSK mentioned. “There’s a lot we don’t know about as well.”
Among the duties the LDE is charged with is researching properties’ historic makes use of and determining how to receive clear titles to get websites prepared for builders.
Kowalski confirmed the brand new nonprofit’s board two examples of the redevelopment of brownfields.
The Indianapolis One Health Campus transforms a 103-acre manufacturing plant into an modern, health-focused mixed-use group, he mentioned.
In Minneapolis, a former World War II facility manufacturing five-inch gun mounts for Navy vessels turns the previous ordinance plant into an industrial park.
That can occur in Northwest Indiana, too.
Bill Sheldrake, of Policy Analytics, famous the RDA gave the LDE $5 million in seed cash to prime the pump for grants. “$5 million doesn’t get the LDE very far when you’re talking about acquiring property, cleaning up property,” and hiring workers, he mentioned.
However, there are alternatives for “very large funding sources,” he mentioned, and the LDE will chase them. Already, Kathy Luther, of the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission, has put in an software for a brownfield coalition evaluation grant and is crossing her fingers.
One of some great benefits of the LDE and the RDA is its scope, masking Lake and Porter counties.
“You have a broader umbrella across a number of municipalities” than many land banks, Sheldrake mentioned. He predicts grant requests to be “quite successful.”
Novak, a former RDA member, mentioned the time is ripe for the LDE. “The RDA has long been doing great work in the community,” he mentioned, and the brand new nonprofit ought to proceed in that 20-year custom.
“I grew up in Hammond. I’m very familiar with some of those sites that will be targeted,” he mentioned.
“It really is a milestone for the RDA today. We’ve been trying to do something like this for quite some time,” Ziller mentioned.
“There is a need for this, a centralized agency in Northwest Indiana,” she mentioned.
“Now the fun begins and the work begins,” Calinski mentioned.
Doug Ross is a contract reporter for the Post-Tribune.