Hi, I'm Jeff Rea your host for Economic Outlook.

Each week, we discuss the region's most important economic development initiatives with a panel of experts.

La Porte has recently captured the attention of the state and nation with the announcement of a new $1 billion Microsoft data center planned for the community.

But there's so much more to the story of the economic resurgence happening across this vital northwest Indiana county.

We'll sit down today with experts for an inside look at key projects on the horizon in La Porte La Porte is rising with recent announcements of significant investments that will drive future economic growth.

We're showcasing La Porte in La Porte County today and diving deeper into the projects you should know more about, and the places you should plan to visit.

La Porte mayor Tom Dermody and Bert Cook, the executive director of La Porte Economic Advancement Partnership, are joining me for that conversation.

Welcome, gentlemen.

Great to be here.

Hey, good to see you.

We've got know lots of good things happening over your way.

One of the chance just to dive a little bit deeper into it today and give our viewers a chance to, to, understand more about what's going on.

Mayor, I'm coming your way first.

And so, again, great to see you again.

Thank you for being here.

I notice on the calendar you've got your, state of the city coming up, here pretty soon.

That's always a great chance to kind of give a snapshot of what's going on.

Can we have a sneak preview?

What?

Like, what's the.

Tell our viewers what the state of the of the city is over in La Porte?

Absolutely.

And we like to do it at the end of the year because we have we believe so many things to share and to talk about that are positive in our community.

And, you know, obviously, thanks to people like Bert Cook from our economic development team.

Everybody's heard about Microsoft and the great news there.

But, you know, we've had annexation, that's allowed for great development to happen.

Not only industrial but from housing perspective.

And, La Porte is no different than many communities across this nation that we need housing of all types.

And I think we've got a great story to tell from habitat for humanity to higher end housing and everything in between.

And, I think the key is quality of life.

Just as you know, I've heard you mentioned many a time the quality of life in La Porte developing different things that will bring people here and allow them to live a great life, raise a family and earn a wonderful living.

But we are seeing the fruits of both of your good labor over there.

And so congratulations on your success.

And so let's come your way for a second.

So let's start with if somebody is not familiar with the La Porte economic advancement Partnership.

Talk to us a little bit about what what you do there.

Yeah.

So appreciate the question.

And we're we're very proud of the work we get to do each and every day in La Porte.

So I have a great team of people that makes up leap as we call ourselves.

We're a combination of the Chamber of Commerce and the economic development organization that represents the city of La Porte, about 450 members from across the greater La Porte area.

Great.

And so let's start with the mayor.

Touch on it.

And then maybe if both of you talk a little bit more, let's talk Microsoft a little bit first because Microsoft obviously is garner the attention of a lot of folks.

But given the large capital investment, it's part of this data center trend in Indiana, where it's Google in Fort Wayne and AWS in South Bend and, and meta down south and stuff that you that you've been fortunate to get Microsoft over that way.

Why don't you start with talking a little bit more about Microsoft?

Yeah, so incredibly exciting project for our community.

I think when you look at that project in conjunction with some of the projects that you're working on here in Saint Joe County, I think it really becomes, an amazing thing for the state of Indiana.

But for the northern part of our state in particular, Microsoft has been a wonderful company to deal with right from the beginning, very community minded, and very cognizant of what this means for the city of La Porte, for La Porte County and for Northwest Indiana.

So they are intending to build a data center similar to what's being built here, with Amazon, about $1 billion capital investments and about 200 employees will ultimately staff that facility once it's built and give the mayor or city council a lot of credit because they had the foresight to, proceed with some annexation and some zoning issues that maybe existed in that area.

And that really paved the way for Microsoft to not only make the decision, but to easily enter our market, and to kind of move a little more quickly than some of the other projects that we've seen throughout the state.

More or less come your way because your peers across the country would love to have a project like this talked to about what this means to a community like La Porte, to land an investment like this.

Well, you know, when I came on board day one, we talked about competing with the best and have high expectations.

And they asked, did you ever think Microsoft would come here?

And we said, yes, because that's where our belief system is.

We have a fantastic team and our residents deserve it.

And especially with those high paying jobs, whether from a tech perspective, engineering, you know, we've committed to be the, engineering capital of Indiana in La Porte, and this is going to help drive that.

But what I really like with the partnership with Microsoft is they are very committed to the school system and improving our schools.

And, La Porte schools is a, a wonderful system, but we can definitely make strides for the future.

And I think with the help of Microsoft and their commitment, we're going to start seeing, great improvements.

Mayor, I want to stay with you for a second.

Burt mentioned.

And in you as well, that like, it takes a lot of people to get a project like this from the start to finish line.

And it's so talked a little bit about, I would say building the coalition and getting all the people pulling in the right direction to make a project like this happen.

That's a great point.

And you just have to share.

You have to be honest and talk to people, especially those that everyday say, we need jobs, jobs, jobs.

We need development.

And I think for many years our net assessed value has stayed the same.

We haven't had growth.

Right now we're looking at population.

That's going to be our goal being 30 by 30, which is 30,000 people by 2030.

We've been stagnant for some 40 years.

And, the people that want it want to believe and know that La Porte can be more are very excited.

And this is a great cornerstone, but not the only job creator that has come or is coming to La Porte.

Thanks again to the great work of leap with It.

And Jeff, the mayor, I mean, mentioned it, but we would, as I think you know, and your team here.

Projects of any size, but particularly large projects like this require a host of different partners to get it done.

So we would be remiss if we, without thanking the Indiana Economic Development Corporation for their work.

Our great partner in Nipsco, who is supplying the energy, which is a major component of this development.

As well as all of the local boards and commissions, that have played a part in this project.

So I know it's a it is a team sport.

When we look at projects like this and we're very proud of the team we get to work with.

Great Britain will stay with you for a second because, and you and then the mayor both talked about, like annexation, for example, help to set the stage.

But but communities are having to do more on the front end these days to have sites ready.

And so talk about maybe that that ahead of time work like the annexation or utility, other things that are necessary to sort of help bring projects like this forward.

Yeah, I think in the economic development world, being, you know, so much groundwork goes into, pre project planning and being ready for the right opportunity that comes your way.

So we spend a lot of time making sure that we've picked out the right sites, that those sites are in a position to be developable.

That the utility infrastructure is there, that they're annexed or can be served by city utilities.

And that's exactly what went on in this particular situation.

Again, I mentioned the mayor, but we've got a council, the redevelopment commission, that had the foresight to, to take action ahead of the project, which in an ultra competitive world that we live in with economic development, that at times that is the difference between landing a project and going to some other community.

So a lot of credit to that foresight.

I think that was a key component of us landing Microsoft.

Great.

Mayor Becker, your way.

So, so, so Microsoft is obviously one of the most recognizable brands in the world, probably now has made a commitment to your city to make an investment.

And obviously we touched on it.

It's important taxpayer.

It's great utility customer a good employer that kind of stuff it.

But talk about maybe the other value that that Microsoft brings like the the radar screens.

This puts you on that you might not have been on before.

I think that's a key point.

And, you know, just saying that, hey, we're a part of Microsoft there in our community, when other businesses are looking, in fact, we laugh because it combines everything we have, probably the best high school basketball tournament.

Well, prep schools in the nation that ESPN covers.

And the funny thing is, when we were negotiating with Microsoft, they happened to be watching on ESPN The Basketball Tournament and saw La Porte, Indiana at the center court.

And, all this blends together when people are looking to say, hey, where do I relocate?

We're an hour from Chicago, and we know, obviously, what's happening in Chicago.

Keep pushing people to Northwest Indiana.

And we said, well, and when they hear that, oh, Microsoft came here, there must be something positive happening in La Porte.

And, we think it is.

And between housing, between the opportunity for, quality employees, this is really going to bode well moving forward.

We're going to dive in a few of those other topics.

But just more quickly for you on general timeframe.

So when will people obviously these projects take a long time to build and stuff, but when will when will people really start to notice activity?

Yeah.

So Microsoft employees have been in town here for the last eight months or so, working periodically on different aspects of the entitlement process.

But we should see Earth moving first quarter of next year.

And I think that'll be the exciting point where people actually notice, changes going on in the site.

And, and construction will then continue for, for a good period of time after that.

But next year will be, the main start of construction.

Great, guys.

We're gonna take a quick break here in the studio, and we'll come back and hit on some of those other topics.

We're going out to the field.

I'm your co-host, George Lepine Otis.

And I'm downtown La Porte today, joined by La Porte City Council member Tim Franchi.

Tim, thank you for being with us.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you for hosting us in your office.

I, it's a rainy day.

We were going to be outside to look at some of the things we're going to be talking about, but the rain derailed us.

And so now we're sitting here comfortable and dry.

So thank you for that.

Tim, tell us a little bit about your time on the council.

This is your second term.

Correct.

I am wrapping up my first year on my second term.

So, we'll call it five years.

I've been on the council, and, I've been the president of the council throughout since I started in 2020.

But we've got a great group of people within our council, and, it's it's really been an exciting time for lot.

We've often heard the adage, you know, think nationally, regionally, but really act locally.

And so before we went on air, you said something to the effect of, I have three kids.

We are invested in this community and thought it was time to give back.

Has that your service on the on the city council or has it felt like giving back?

It has.

I've I've always been heavily involved in the community.

You know, I try to serve, charitable boards, donate where I can, but, you know, ultimately, this is our community.

It's where my family is located, and it's where my kids are growing up.

So I want to do my part to make a a better place for them, and for future generations.

Well, speaking of making it a better place.

The city of La Porte is, vital player in what we call our regional economy.

And, you know, we think about La Porte, the city of La Porte, the city of Michigan City, La Porte County, even more broadly, all experiencing growth in unique sectors of our economy that maybe we've never seen before.

Tell us a little bit about the city and what projects it's got up and coming that might see some economic growth.

We we have a lot of different projects going on, but I think the most exciting aspect is there's three major projects within our backyard.

And they're all technology related.

A sector, the traditional and you'll see more, you know, on the West Coast.

But we're excited to have, great partners like Microsoft coming to the city of La Porte.

What that means for us specifically is great paying jobs.

And, it's just going to help grow the economy and, grow our community in general.

Well that's great.

When we talk about these great paying jobs, Indiana's northern economy, whether it be Microsoft here, the city of La Porte or Amazon, building, a similar facility over in Saint Joseph County.

It seems like our economic development efforts have been rewarded, but really, they come with additional responsibilities, not just about getting the companies here.

It's about creating quality of place, isn't it?

Absolutely.

And that's since I took office in 2020.

That's been, a huge focus for me is quality of life.

Back to giving back to the community.

But also helping grow the community.

We're in a different sort of economy now where people have the ability to choose where they want to live before they choose where they work.

You know, you choose to move to where your job was, right?

You can work from home for a lot of jobs, and people are really interested in a great quality of life.

Meaning who has a good park system or who has good trails?

Where's the place where I can see raising a family?

That's been super important for us within the city to create that environment and make it a better place to live.

And as we think about those efforts of creating them, it goes even more fundamental to not only great parks, not only great infrastructure, which La Porte has in spades between the lakes and the parks, and all of the fun, recreation things that we know we can do here.

But, also more fundamental in making sure there's quantity of housing.

Yeah, we know that we have a housing shortage.

I think we have a housing shortage across America.

Yeah.

But specifically we had a housing study done a few years ago, and, we need thousands of homes right now.

And so we're making a concerted effort to grow our housing in all levels.

So, you know, you're you're working class home up to your high end homes.

We need we need it all.

And, we've got multiple housing projects going on right now.

We want to continue to see more and more housing, because we know there's going to be more people coming.

But we need a place for them to live.

So.

Yeah.

That's that's super important.

Yeah.

These are not problems that I think city leaders would have envisioned even ten years ago as being, what you might have to be grappling with as you look to the successes and the challenges.

What do you see the next three years of your term bringing?

What do you think that the city council is really going to have to, work to, to overcome or make, you know, help make the, La Porte an even better place to be?

Well, I think we've made great strides in the quality of life.

I'm certain that you'll see some more activity there, but I'm happy with the progress we've made.

Housing is something that in three years, we're not going to say, okay, we're good.

We need lots and lots of housing.

So I foresee that as being the major focus for the next three years.

We know we've got a great place and businesses want to come here.

We're centrally located in between southbound Chicago, close to interstates.

We have great train system.

There's plenty of positives, including in the city of La Porte.

Specifically fiber laid throughout.

Which is super important for businesses.

So housing is the number one thing.

Yeah.

Well, and that's a great point, fiber in the way it's changing our communities.

Tim.

Thank you.

Thank you for hosting us here today.

Thanks for taking time out of your day job.

But also, thanks for the service you give to the community.

Thank you to our viewers for joining us again on another great story of why our region is succeeding and how cities like La Porte are not only succeeding in bringing in additional business, but figuring out how they can support those growth initiatives.

All right.

We're back in the studio here, guys.

Thank you so much for this.

A great conversation about what's going on.

And maybe let me switch a little bit.

We you know obviously Microsoft great project.

There's what I teased early though.

There's a lot more going on.

And one of the things that grabs my attention when I'm over your way is you're downtown.

And so, all the communities in our viewing area have wrestled a little bit with the vibrancy of their downtown.

You you mentioned the importance of Quality place.

I think I feel like La Porte's done a great job of keeping those storefronts active and such.

Give us a give us a little insight into your secret for success and developing downtown there.

Well, you know, our downtown is filled with independent business owners, local people that wanted to take their shot, take their chance to be business owners that have been very successful, from flower shops to restaurants and everything in between.

And, you know, this is despite where we have a state highway running right through the middle of our downtown, and we've worked extremely hard to say what options do we have to work with the state to work with the federal government to say, how do we provide opportunities for truck traffic to move, to where they need to go, but find alternative routes?

And I'll tell you what, we've got some new things happening that are going to happen with that.

But I think you're seeing more and more families want to walk the downtown, and we're becoming a very walkable community.

And I think you'll see, with housing coming where those second, third story buildings downtown can provide some housing for those young professionals that want to be close but want to be able to walk everywhere.

So things are happening.

We've got bike paths, but again, thanks to the quality of team members that we have that are making it happen, it's going to be a great look in the near future.

Burt Ed on this a little bit and talk a little bit of quality of place.

I think, you know, economic developers usually worried about site readiness and and land and tax and regulatory environment, all those exciting things.

But quality places have become such an important piece of this discussion.

Build on what the mayor had to say about why that's so important to what you're doing.

Yeah.

So I think when we started, Jeff, in the economic development world, I think you would agree that there was a philosophy of create as many good paying jobs as you can, and everything else will take care of itself.

And we recognize that in today's world, that's not how things work, right?

People choose the community that they want to live in, and then they find work accordingly.

And so you have to focus on the quality of life and the quality of place, in order to attract the people that we're looking to attract, and to better the lives of those residents who are already here.

So I think to the mayor's point, if you, you know, one characteristic that is very common amongst downtowns that are successful is this pedestrian friendly atmosphere where people feel comfortable moving throughout the downtown area.

We're not there yet.

We recognize that, that we have work to do in that regard.

But I think we've we've begun the process of making some of those improvements, some of those changes, and then coupling that with the investments in buildings and structure and facades, has really changed the esthetic of our downtown.

We're very lucky in that we have a La Porte Urban Enterprise Association, which is a great tool that was developed by our, state many years ago and allows us to maybe invest some of those dollars back into structures that are typically a little difficult to invest.

It may come your way because we touched briefly on housing in particular, and housing feels like such a crisis nationally.

We've had a couple of shows where we've talked about housing.

We kind of not recovered yet from the housing crisis in 2008, 2009.

It's an important priority of yours as you're trying to grow your population.

So I've talked to us and we've talked both a little bit about sort of what's going on in the housing space and how you're trying to create new opportunities there.

Absolutely.

So we've had a great local developer such as Mitch Vikings builders, you know, that build.

But other than he the last 30 years really hasn't been much.

So we have quite a bit of catching up to do.

And now that, we're kind of promoting and focused on the quality of life, we have, Steiner Homes, who's building his first neighborhood that was considered, he's considered the number one builder in northwest Indiana.

We have habitat, for humanity.

Plus, we just announced yesterday the, a or the Park Street project with the developer and builder, from Michigan and Illinois.

So things are happening every everywhere.

But what really began, I think, was on day one when we told landlords, you're going to have standards to meet.

We're no longer going to allow, what's happened in you to take advantage of our community over the last 20 years?

We're going to put code enforcement on you.

We're going to work together with those that want to make improvements.

But if you don't, there's other places you can go.

And I think, between all the new projects and making sure we have high standards for the current upkeep of rentals, it's all coming into play to provide offerings for everyone, for more affordable housing to those high end executive houses, and homes as well.

Well, one of the interesting facts or statistics about the report.

So 80% of the homes in the city were built prior to 1980, which is kind of staggering if you think about the difference in expectations for a single family home in 1980 versus two 2024, those are very different expectations.

So we understand that we have to make improvement in that area.

We also have a great resource, the Health Foundation of La Porte, which is has invested in our community and in a myriad of different ways over the years.

You know, initiatives that benefit health and safety, but all kinds of other things as well.

And they are now investing in our residential development.

We're very appreciative of that.

And I think it's provided opportunities to, to look at areas that may be more challenging, in the past.

And we've got a new source of funds that might help, redevelop some of those areas as well.

Great.

Brendan will stay with you for a second.

So, I think one of the other items everybody is wrestling with a little bit is kind of the workforce education, preparing people for the jobs of the future.

You certainly have that challenge now with Microsoft kind of a newer industry there.

But but overall, you want to make sure your citizens are are prepared for it.

Talk to us about what's going on in the workforce.

Yeah.

So I think that it all starts the mayor mentioned earlier about our school corporation.

I think it starts they're really pleased with the school board and our new superintendent and their focus on career and technical education, getting people, the skills as they graduate to walk into jobs that are ultimately going to be very successful long term.

It begins there.

But we have great partners in Purdue and Ivy tech as well, that are readying the workforce for these, the types of jobs that are available now, and also reskilling people who, you know, maybe have the opportunity to move into a new job.

It also, you know, connects to us the strategy that we have in terms of what we're looking for.

There was a time where maybe we were looking for quantity of jobs.

It was as many jobs as possible.

And now I think we've taken a stance of being much more focused on the quality of the jobs that we're attracting to our community and finding high tech, high paying jobs that that ultimately will lead to a really strong lifestyle for for many of the residents in La Porte.

Mayor, as we get closer to our end, our last couple of minutes or so, talk to us a little bit about, you know, kind of what's ahead.

You kind of have set the stage.

You've got kind of checking these boxes right on on downtown, on housing, on workforce, on annexations.

Some of that give us a sneak peek at, some things that we should have on our radar, going forward.

Well, I'll tell you this.

And we just talked about it with our team that we've got, over, $1.2 billion worth of projects that we're working on.

And I know sometimes it's unique when I say, hey, we need to take a breath.

Let's finish what we started.

And, we have, when we took over on day one, infrastructure needs water, sewer at about $100 million of work that needed to be done, that because our infrastructure was 100 years old.

We're going to continue to move forward with that.

And really, we're going to take the next year or two to make sure the projects that we started are moving forward, that are going to make the quality of life not only now much improved, but many years well beyond Bert and myself.

That La Porte won't have to worry about this again.

And in a minute or so, talk about your focus.

What's ahead for leap?

Yeah.

So I think one of the things that I would stress partnership or cooperation, in different geographies, right.

We believe in this broader vision of, of regionality and how we are part of something larger.

The Northwest Indiana Forum, which is our regional economic development group led by Heather Ennis.

Heather is a great asset, a great friend of La Porte.

We've got some, some unique opportunities with readI dollars that potentially could come to our community.

And I think we're focused on, as the mayor said, cleaning up some of the projects that we that we have in the hopper right now.

And then turning our attention to how do we how are we a better part of the region and how do we attract people from a broader geography?

Mayor, I'll give you 30s to make the pitch to our viewers about why they should come to La Porte.

We're going to have housing.

And I mean, when you look at the new Carlisle projects that are happening, you look at the La Porte projects, who better to provide that housing?

That's only ten minutes away.

And then the quality of life, you know, we're we're growing our civic auditorium.

That was not never meant to be a museum.

We're now having all different types of events that people can enjoy.

So come to La Porte will take you around for the weekend and you won't want to leave.

Awesome guys.

Thanks for being here.

Really appreciate your visit today, Jeff.

Thank you.

That's it for our show today.

On behalf of the entire team here at Wnit PBS, Mr. Oceana, we want to thank you for watching or listening to our podcast to watch this episode again or any of our past episodes, find Economic outlook@white.org, or find our podcast on most major podcast platforms like us on Facebook.

Follow us on Twitter.

I'm Jeff Rea I'll see you next time.

This WNIT local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.