GOSHEN — Elkhart County leaders Wednesday learned that all local projects seeking funding through the $42 million Regional Cities Initiative grant program will have until July 2017 to prove they are build-ready or lose that funding to other potential projects.
Pete McCown, president of the Community Foundation of Elkhart County, made the announcement during the county’s monthly County-Cities forum in Goshen Wednesday afternoon.
The grant program, recently approved by the Indiana General Assembly, includes three $42 million regional grants, one of which has been designated for the South Bend-Elkhart region of Elkhart, St. Joseph and Marshall counties, known formally as Regional Cities of Northern Indiana.
The regional development plan for the Regional Cities of Northern Indiana consortium includes 39 project proposals totaling more than $700 million in investment for the region. Potential projects include a nearly $14 million renovation of the Goshen Theater and a proposed outdoor amphitheater on the west side of the millrace.
The consortium was required to form a Regional Development Authority, a five-member board made up of representatives from each of the region’s three counties tasked with overseeing the project selection and funding process for the region on behalf of the Indiana Economic Development Corp. McCown currently serves on the board along with John Affleck-Graves, executive vice president of the University of Notre Dame, Regina Emberton, president of Michiana Partnership, Dallas Bergl, president and CEO of INOVA Federal Credit Union, and John DeSalle, vice president of Engineering and Manufacturing for Hoosier Racing Tire Corp.
In order to qualify for Regional Cities funding, each targeted project has to secure at least 60 percent of the total cost in private funding support and at least 20 percent in local public support. Once that funding is secured, the RDA then has the authority to award the final 20 percent in Regional Cities grant funds.
According to McCown, the RDA has finalized development of an application template for projects and will soon begin the process of evaluating the projects for grant consideration.
“Really we are the administrator on behalf of the IEDC,” McCown said of the program. “So we have degrees of authority, but once we have affirmed a request or project fits the Regional Cities priorities, then we actually have to submit that to the IEDC for final approval, and they do have veto power over our recommendation. So the money isn’t ours, the money is the IEDC’s, and we’re serving as an auxiliary arm of the IEDC.”
McCown said the plan is to give top priority to the original projects since they were part of the application that helped secure the grant for the region. Updated applications from project leaders are due by June 15, McCown said, so they can be reviewed by the RDA board to determine which ones are closest to meeting the Regional Cities criteria.
McCown spoke of the $13.7 million Goshen Theater project as an example.
“That project has great interest to us as an RDA, but it has to get close to the 60/20/20 criteria that is required, and there’s a fair amount of private fundraising that has to happen,” McCown said. “But we don’t want to have allocated all of the $42 million and then have that come to maturity and not have any money left. So what we may do is, since it’s about a $10 million project, we may set aside $2 million, and if they get their act together and can secure the other funding necessary to meet the criteria, then that money will be there.”
McCown said the RDA has until the end of June 2019 to administer the $42 million and anticipates just three or four of the projects will be build-ready and eligible for submission to the IEDC by the RDA’s June 15 deadline for updated applications. A second application evaluation in November or December is planned for projects that my need additional preparation time. The board will then follow up with a third review in July 2017.