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By NATHAN MARCHAND
“As we ‘fine tune’ our economic-development strategy,” said Bluffton Mayor Ted Ellis in his state of the city address on March 6, “we become more and more aware that the first question on a commercial site-selector’s list is ‘Is the property shovel-ready?’ Unless the answer to this is ‘yes,’ we never get a second look.”
By that, he meant the property had had archeological and soil studies done, utilities mapped, and surveys and title searches completed. Essentially, a company could buy the property and walk onto it and start shoveling immediately.
The Indiana Economic Development Commission offers a shovel-ready certification that moves sites to the top of the list for consideration, said Ellis.
But he said property owners are often reluctant to invest in such designations because the upfront costs are often several thousand dollars.
“However, if we could have three or four ‘shovel-ready’ programs in Wells county, it would be quite a draw,” he added.
So, he continued, he would propose to the city council to set aside economic development tax money(CEDIT funds) to assist property owners in obtaining “shovel-ready” designation.
These would be in amounts of $5,000 to $10,000 and could be repaid once the property was sold.
“[It] would be very helpful in our efforts to market our community and attract new jobs,” said Ellis.
More recently, Ellis said this initiative had made some progress. Dan Decker, a local farmer, had expressed interest in such property, though it has not gone any further than that.
Ellis said 60 percent of the items needed for the initiative could be done by the city in-house. These included investigating where streets go and making topographical maps. All of this, he said, has already been done.
Thirty percent of the initiative process would be done by outside contractors. These included environmental surveys, title work and surveys of properties. Ellis has suggested the city pay for this using money from the CEDIT funds, then have land owners repay them.
The rezoning ordinance passed for Dan Decker by the city council at their June 10 meeting was for five to six acres of property that would have been part of the initiative if it had not been sold.
Ellis said this would require the city to re-draw its plans, but it would not be “a big deal” since designating property as “shovel ready” is done to get it sold.
The remaining 10 percent of the process boils down to commitments from owners. This involves the terms by which the owners will sell.
This will be done right before submitting paperwork to the state. It will help keep owners from backing out of the deal, changing their minds or selling the property for more than its worth.