(Shovel)
ready for action
By Trevor Wendzonka | Chamber Staff
or four long years, Bob Schrock waited. His prime industrial
real estate along C.R. 17 remained just bare ground, but he
kept searching for brighter days on the other side of the
Great Recession.
Schrock waited, but he didn’t sit still.
His firm, DJ Construction, applied to make 48 acres of Beck Industrial
Park a “shovel-ready site” in the eyes of the state of Indiana. The
designation was something local leaders had seen as a tool for a number
of years, but nobody had pursued it until the Greater Elkhart Chamber’s
Economic Development Council led the way.
Now, companies prepared to move into
Elkhart County don’t need to wait an extra
month or two or more to have the state’s
blessing to build. Beck Industrial Park was
the first, but three other spots in Elkhart
County soon could be officially added to the
list.
“It makes it good for the customer. We’re
very close to getting another accepted
purchase agreement out there (at Beck). …
They’ve got to be in by early next year at the
latest, and we’re going to be able to meet the
demands of that customer because of this,”
says Schrock, DJ Construction’s CEO. “It
really gives the customer confidence, and it
puts confidence in my team.
“All our documentation is in place – we’ve
got the site, we’ve done the investigation, we
have the answers.”
Seeing a need to diversify his interests,
Schrock bought the land and developed Beck
Drive between 2005 and ’07.
“Then,” he says, “you know what
happened. No one was looking at industrial
ground. I sat on it for four years. It was
draining. … But now that things are
Wish list: Offering
consistency in
tax incentives
Encouraging business investment is hard work.
A mound of paperwork doesn’t make it any
easier.
With leadership provided by the
Chamber’s Jim Walsh through NCI and the
Economic Development Council, along with
strong input from the Economic Development
Corp., decision makers are making progress
in streamlining how tax incentives are
offered and evaluated.
Rather than each municipality and county
government offering different packages,
EDC is getting closer to being able to
provide companies with just one form to fill
out. This comes with an agreement elected
officials will judge companies mostly by
wages offered, business investment and other
defined criteria.
It’s smart governm ???????????????)?????????????????????????????????????????((0