Hi.

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

Thank you for joining us.

We hope you make plans each week to tune in on WNIT or WNIT 2, online at WNIT.org or listen to our podcast of the show.

On most major podcast platforms in the past, we've taken you Downtown Mishawaka for a look at some of the exciting redevelopment that's happened on the former Uniroyal site.

In December, a major new attraction opened on the site.

We'll give you a firsthand look at the improvements and talk about what's next.

Coming up on economic outlook.

Mishawaka recently opened a 17,500 square foot ice ribbon and plaza that offers daily ice skating, birthday party rentals, skating lessons, unique ice activities and community events.

The project is part of a larger plan to redevelop the former Uniroyal site and attract new people to the downtown and the community.

We're taking you back to Mishawaka for an update on what's happening along the riverfront and giving you some insight on why you should go visit if you haven't been there.

Joining me for a closer look at Mishawaka's Renaissance and updates on some key quality life projects are Ken Prince, the executive director of planning and Community Development for the City Mishawaka, and Phil Blasko, superintendent of the Mishawaka Parks and Recreation Department.

Guys, thanks for joining me today.

Would you appreciate what we've had you both on before?

We've watched with great interest what's happening along the riverfront in Mishawaka.

This has been a you've had some exciting announcements.

So we want to make sure our viewers get a chance to see it.

But let's spend a little time in the studio first, just first, Ken, let me come your way and talk a little bit about historically so.

So we're talking about downtown former Uniroyal site.

Give us a little feel for the history of it for people maybe who are new to the area that don't know what happened there before.

Right.

So the city was founded on that site back in 1833.

They found bag iron on the property that lasted for a little while.

And then when that ran out, that was really the industrial heart.

Ultimately the industry ball bend expanded Uniroyal acquired it in the 1950 and then declared bankruptcy in the early 1990s.

The city acquired the property in the late 1990s and you were part of that master planning process?

We did the River Center Master Plan in 1999.

The facility was demolished and the site was ready for redevelopment.

At the end of 2002, we put it out to bids.

We had no bids and decided to build Beutter Park and kind of the rest is history.

And really what Beutter Park showed for us is that building quality of life improvements really aids in that redevelopment effort.

So we've been at it for about 20 years now, and every time we do a new improvement, it has really helped on the redevelopment of the property.

Phil, come your way.

We're going to ask you to take your park superintendent hat off for a second.

But but you're a Mishawaka kid.

You grew up there, sort of obviously this big factory that Ken mentioned kind of had a looming presense.

What were your what were your impressions of the of the plant as a youngster in town?

Yeah.

So, I mean, I was born and raised Mishawaka.

I was born in 1983.

And so that was my whole life growing up is this big, huge plant with all these huge buildings.

And that was downtown.

There was nothing to do.

I remember Central Park was a park that that I was not allowed to go to because it was kind of like so hidden and off the beaten path.

And we didn't really and as a family, we didn't get to enjoy downtown.

We didn't get to enjoy any of the parks because they weren't what they are now.

And so coming back and seeing the transformation and being a part of that transformation is, is amazing to be able to see.

Not only is it affecting the people that live there now, but generationally, ten, 15, 20, 30, 40 years from now, that's still going to be here.

And so being able to see that quality of life and the improvements downtown and then who would have ever thought we'd have restaurants in this spot?

You know, and an ice rink?

And so it is amazing to be a part of that.

And and really, you know, see our hometown just growing rapidly.

Ken, we're going to go a step back in time a little bit.

So you talked about this this master planning process and kind of creating or crafting a vision for what would happen downtown.

Some of the key elements or drivers.

What was it that that the city hoped to accomplish as they were as they were executing on a plan through the years?

Right.

So we were looking for mixed use development.

We thought that was very important, that you didn't just want an office building that was going to be there and operate from 9 to 5, shut the doors.

We wanted that activity to go into the evening.

We wanted a space where people could live, so that mixed use was a critical component, pedestrian friendly.

So downtown is different than out on grape road and subdivisions where you're driving everywhere.

So we really wanted people to be able to walk downtown and then architecturally significant.

So we didn't want a quick building to go up, complete the development.

You know, when we did the plan, we always talked about this isn't the site for a big box store.

You know, we don't want to just redevelop the property.

It has to really be of significance where it goes and helps kind of that heart of the downtown be reconstructed.

So there's a three principal elements that we had in that river center master plan so Phil to come back your way and actually put your park superintendent back on this time.

So, Ken touched on like a key element.

The pedestrian friendly piece of this in a in a key element was to to make some connections, especially to to the park transit.

So so talk a little bit about maybe the parks in the downtown area and the important connection there.

That's that's sort of helping catalyze the interest in people living down there.

Yeah.

So the connectivity in of our parks with the river walk is, is very key and you have a different feel and a different, different atmosphere at every park you go to.

Battell Park's more of your historic park in the Central Park, more of the teens.

And then you have the urban park, which is our Beutter Park with the Ironworks Plaza and the beer garden.

And so each park, as you travel with on the Riverwalk, you get a whole different experience of the city of Mishawaka.

And you get a whole different atmosphere as far as family and seniors.

And so just depending on what park you visit along the river walk, you get a whole different feel for what Mishawaka is.

We also are able to utilize that river walk for many different events and programs.

So we not only do we host our own 5Ks and 1K family fun runs and bubble runs and all that stuff.

But a lot of our community partners also utilize that river walk for their use too.

So.

So Ken as Phil talks about kind of these connections and the unique piece, bringing people down there a little, build it and they will come philosophy sort of.

The development then has started to follow.

So talk a little bit about maybe projects like the Mill and some of those and even the stuff that's happened on the North Side.

Why bringing residential has been so critical to that downtown area.

So over time, when Uniroyal was there, we saw really it took a toll on our our businesses downtown.

As Uniroyal decreased in employment, so did the so a lot of the housing down there was built as worker housing.

So that worker housing was degraded over time.

And what we really needed to do was change that dynamic.

And one of the interesting things that has occurred over time is now it's some of the most demanded property.

You know, it's how close can I get to the downtown?

You don't see properties downtown coming up for sale, for example, because people want to live there.

And I think part of that is the amenities that have been constructed, but it's also the dynamic.

Well, this project is there.

I'm not going to be by myself.

So really when the development happened on the north side of the river with River Rock, that really proved that a higher end rental environment could exist in downtown.

And the nice thing about it is you can still find relatively affordable homes in close proximity.

And our goal in the redevelopment efforts was not just to the downtown, but how to connect neighborhoods to that downtown.

So, for example, our next section of the River Walk will connect every street to Cedar Street and open up that connection to more neighborhoods.

And that'll complete be completed next year at this year Phil come your way because there's a little bit of sort of the the built environment was built to through the park build the connections and such.

Let's attract the development down here.

Let's get some housing and such down there.

But the but the programing piece of this too.

So so before we're going to see the Ironworks in just a second, but before we see Ironworks, talk about some of the stuff your team has been doing, farmer's market, other things to try to get people to concerts, whatever.

Tell us a little bit about the the job of bringing people down there.

Yeah.

So, you know, our staff has been done a tremendous job and they have a philosophy in the Parks Department, the kind of what we go by, start at the wall and see what sticks.

And that's how we came up with some of these ideas.

As far as the farmer's market and having it downtown, we designed that road to be our event road.

And so not only does that road there on Ironworks Avenue host of Mishawaka Farmers Market, but it also hosts Food Truck Wednesdays.

And we have numerous concerts that happen.

And so any time during the week, throughout the summer, you can be any of those parks and have a free event for the community.

Monday nights we have concerts at Battell Park, Wednesday nights you have concert at the Beer Garden and Thursday nights we have concerts at the at Central Park, Sundays you have the farmer's market.

And so we're also looking at incorporating more events and programing on other nights that it's just to make sure we have something for all and to be able to enjoy.

And most of them are free Ken before we go to the mayor, let me come back your way so so as things like the Mill have come, you know, the desire to grow population and give new places to live, talk about the city's experience with it.

What's what's been the reaction to a development like the Mill?

What what's it doing to bring people down there?

I think it's a vibrancy.

I think it's changing the demographics.

So Mishawaka, walking the downtown, it was an older community and now we have a lot of young people bringing in and that brings a certain vibrancy to it.

The nice thing we had trouble or I should say the developer had trouble leasing up the space because of COVID.

But now both restaurants are the Mill.

The commercial space is fully occupied.

We have the agreement with South Bend Chocolate for the public house in Mishawaka off of the skating rink.

That should be opening very shortly.

So that dynamic of additional restaurants, it's not just one, and I use that as an example, is there's a synergy that has to be created.

So that was part of the idea of moving city hall downtown as well, was creating that synergy of uses and complementing one another.

So it's not just one thing.

You just don't go downtown for the restaurants at night.

You go down for the river walk, you go down to skate.

There's that multi-use provisions.

And really what the skating rink does that we didn't have before is connecting that vibrancy to a year round activity.

So being in this area, we all know that it's difficult sometimes to find things to do in the winter, but now there's another great thing to do in the winter.

So great.

All right.

We're going to give our viewers a sneak peek or not a sneak peek, a look at the Ironworks Plaza.

My co-host George Lepeniotis is in downtown Mishawaka with Mayor Dave Wood George Let me toss it to you.

Thanks, Jeff.

I'm in downtown Mishawaka, and I'm joined today by Mayor Dave Wood.

Mayor, thanks for being with us.

Your welcome.

Mayor, thanks.

First off, for showing us around this amazing facility.

We call it Ironworks.

And it is not only kind of the central station for the new ice rink facility, but also an event center and soon to be home of a restaurant.

It is.

And so this has been about 11 years in the planning and now with construction wrapping up and us now operating for a month, it has been a game changer for us.

So I told you before we went on air.

My day job.

I work in Mishawaka and in our conference room is a photograph of this site circa 1970 something, and it is an aerial of this entire area.

When it was a Uniroyal facility and an industrial I want to call it a wasteland, but it was an industrial facility, heavy industrial.

Looking around us today.

I can't see a remnant of that.

Is that a success in your book?

It's a huge success.

You know, and this site is a very important this has always been the center of Mishawaka.

This is the site of our founding.

This is the site where most of our citizens came to work for all of those decades.

And, of course, we had an EPA cleanup site there for a few years.

But the site returns to being the center of our community and a very new and unique and different way.

And we talk about you said clean up site.

What a great word.

Right.

Because the cleanup didn't just stop with getting rid of any potential hazardous material.

It went way beyond that.

As we look around here, you have massive residential growth in the mill and a few other projects that are either breaking ground or potentially going to break ground in months coming.

Tell us, what was the original plan when you were looking around here?

I know Mayor Jeff was responsible in part for for Beutter Park, but really, this is such an exponential growth from that point.

You know, it started with the conversation with the community who worked at the site.

This paid the bills for not only many households around the community, but also the tax bills for the city.

And when they went out of business, you know that conversation to start.

Look, the factory's not coming back.

What can this site be?

And so my predecessors, Mayor Jeff, Mayor Bob, really get the credit for that because they envisioned a place where people may want to live downtown Mishawaka, where that industrial waste site existed.

And so all of these years later, it's happened over multiple projects.

You know, Riverwalk sections want, you know, multiple phases, a new park.

Back in 2003, Beutter Park.

And so we always knew we wanted to expand upon it.

But we also noticed, too, that our investment in quality of place, quality of life amenities were also bringing in private investment to the downtown for the first time in decades.

And so now is the culmination of just all of that vision, all of these projects, one by one, adding up into something very special.

Yeah.

And from a perspective of very special, not only is it a beautiful place and it really does show off the landscape of this area, not something you would think would be.

But really when you get up into this event space center and you can see it from a bird's eye perspective, you get the beauty, but also just a different level of activity.

We talked about the event space that's open to the public.

You can have weddings or meetings up here and it's readily available seven days a week.

Yes, available for rent any time.

Yeah.

And then I know there's a public house restaurant going downstairs to kind of serve some of the needs of the skaters, though.

Tell us about the rink.

How how is that working out?

So the rink, it's been open now a month.

We've already done better in this last month than we've done in multiple years at our former ice rink, which was coming in to end of life.

And so we knew that we needed to replace that amenity and we thought, well, is it best to replace it where it existed on the outskirts of town, or do we want to move that downtown and kind of create a vibrancy not just in the summer, but year round?

You know, we can't help winter.

Winter is coming.

And you know, the cold weather's here.

We can complain about it or we can embrace it and try to make the most of it so that that's what this is.

And it has done its job here since being open in the first month.

It's been a hub of activity.

We have had record attendance downtown, but more importantly, the businesses around here, the restaurants are shops now.

They are seeing a big increase in their business as well.

And so that's really what we're after, as well as providing a great amenity for our public and downtown.

I was just through here last Friday evening.

Not a parking spot to be found anywhere in the downtown and wait at multiple restaurants.

Just people walking up and down the streets waiting outside to go into the restaurants.

It's exactly what you want to see in your downtown.

It's a good problem to have, isn't it?

Now, in conjunction with this investment that you made in the recreational facilities, I'll call it you also.

The city recently made an investment in City Hall and the government center, police department and the Utilities Administration.

That facility is now open.

It is an operational we've been in there for three or four months now and it is again, it's a center of activity right in the middle of it, right in the heart of the downtown that we didn't have before.

Right.

We have seen just a lot of new and friendly faces coming in to city hall that we never saw before.

And it is just it's been well received by the public.

But most importantly, it allows us to serve with what I call world class services, not just now, but for the foreseeable future.

Well, in a big upgrade.

While I loved old Mishawaka City Hall, it definitely was long in the tooth, shall we say.

So we outgrew it the day we moved in.

Yeah, yeah.

It had that feel about it.

So congratulations.

Thank you for your time today.

I know you're busy.

I appreciate the tour.

This place is spectacular.

Jeff, back to you in the studio.

I know you've got more to talk about with Mishawaka, downtown Mishawaka and the exciting things that are happening because you and Mayor Wood and your other mayors that have served this community for a long time got creative and figured out how to make it a better place to be.

George Thanks and thanks, Mayor, for giving us a look at what's going on downtown.

So we get a chance to to see the what's happening at the ironworks, a terrific addition to our community.

It's interesting for replaces Merrifield I'm a kid who grew up in in Mishawaka I'm not all that great on skates though and so I didn't I didn't go as often as they need to.

So talk to us a little about just the the place, what you've tried to create, even I think back to Merrifield was was available part of the year.

There wasn't much the rest of of your tell us about what you've tried to create downtown.

Yeah so we wanted to make sure we created a space that for example, if you weren't very good at skating, could you still enjoy ice rink?

And so that's when you see the unique amenities that we have, like the ice bumper cars.

You don't need to know anything about ice skating in order to get out there.

And it's just two joysticks that get to go around.

And, you know, I was just out there this last Saturday and I watched literally 12 senior citizens out there having the time of their life.

They all and I talked to them like, well, we can't skate, but we had so much fun on your ice rink because of you guys.

You know, we thinking outside the box and how can we make sure that everybody can enjoy this space even if you can't ice skate?

And so what is very interesting about that space as well as those the walls will come down during the soon as the rink is season is over and they will be able to use that space for.

We have a brew fest coming up.

We have a retro music fest coming up and we have a lot of different varieties of new events that we look to use in that plaza space.

And the farmer's market will grow into that plaza as well.

And we're looking to have anywhere from 60 to 70 vendors this year because of the growth into the plaza.

Right.

So Ken talk a little bit.

So obviously, you know, a couple of objectives here.

It seems like, one, to provide this quality place, give residents a chance to do that, but also to attract future development opportunities.

So so as I'm down there, it seems like there's dirt moving in the neighborhood still.

There's been a lot of construction actually the last few years.

Talk about what's what's next or what other opportunities exist sort of around this area that you've just made a significant improvement to.

Right.

So actually, under construction when you're down there, that dirt that's moving is for the Avalon.

It's a mixed use building that's going directly south of the the mill project.

So right off the traffic circle there that that's being moved is a little over 100 apartments with lower level commercial that we hope will be a restaurant at some point in time, but the market will determine that.

So we're really excited about that.

We're also working on the mill phase two.

So Flaherty & Collins out of Indianapolis, the developer for phase one, we're working with them on phase two.

A very similar concept in terms of a parking garage that will have a couple hundred apartments and lower level commercial for restaurants.

So by the time that we're done down there, there may be another four or five restaurants that are located in that area that we think will be a great dynamic in terms of bringing people downtown.

Great downtowns have always been that center place for activities.

It's neat to see these things happen.

Ken I want to stay with you for a quick second?

So.

So all these activities happen.

Obviously, there's some been some tremendous public and private expenditures for for for somebody at home who's worried that that that their tax bill went up because of all these improvements downtown.

Help us understand sort of the mechanism and how we've been able to pay for some of those improvements down there right.

So all the improvements have essentially been paid by tax increment financing.

So this is based on new development coming in.

We captured the increment between the old tax and the new and that is put into a fund for pay for infrastructure essentially.

And so for the mill, we were generating no taxes off of that property.

And when the mill was developed with those hundreds of apartments and this is only the property tax portion that's collected, so they also pay income taxes as well, but that generates well over $700,000 a year in revenue that we were then putting back into those improvements.

So that's how those these are being funded.

It's not off the general taxes of the everyday citizen paying the the property.

Great.

Yeah.

I always like to just sort of give those opportunities because I think people wonder sometimes.

So thank you for helping to clear that up.

Phil let's come here we are in our last couple of minutes here.

Obviously some terrific things downtown.

This he's made a great commitment to quality of life.

You are sort of spearheading not only programing, but you're both working on improvements.

Where else?

What else is happening in the parks that our folks ought to know a little bit about in our last 4 minutes or so?

You know, we have two big improvements that are happening this year.

If you drive by Battell Park, we have a new splash pad, new playground coming in.

You're going to see some movement at Crawford Park as well.

There'll be a one of a kind playground getting put in there and a new splash pad put in there as well.

But we're also looking at how can we reach out to some of our neighborhood parks and bring some more events, we're we're very we're trying to make sure that we can reach those that may not be able to get to the river walk.

And so we're looking at doing some of the pocket park events and programing to make sure that everyone gets to enjoy the parks.

And so one of the things that we have also been very aware of is we just did an improvement at Temple Park in a child that was in the neighborhood was was born without eyes.

And so we were able to, for the first time, bring Braille into our parks.

And so now you're going to see that in all of our park improvements we have, we've made a commitment to their family that any time we do a park improvement, you're going to see Braille in our parks.

And so we want to make sure whenever we do improvements and whenever we have the funding to do that, anybody that comes to our park feels welcome.

No matter what their superpower may be.

We want to make sure that they have fun no matter the age.

And so we're very you know, we're very focused on that.

I'm going to stick with you for a second, so let's go back downtown for a second.

So so you have an open operating introduce us to the public right before Christmas.

How has the public responded to this so far?

It has been great.

It's been tremendous.

I know it's a very beginning.

It's like, oh, people are trying to envision what this ice frame is going to be.

Is it going to be fun?

It's going to be cool.

You know, a lot of people were, you know, very attached to Merrifield because that's where they skate with their younger.

But we are getting so many families coming down there that are just having the time of their life.

You know, we just we just had the winter break happen and almost every day we had sold out sessions of people getting down there.

And and it's so interesting to see all of these cars parked downtown, you know, on Friday night, there was nowhere to park in downtown Mishawaka.

And that is it's amazing, you know, it's best specially being from Mishawaka.

So it's been very well received by our community and we are we're very proud of that.

Great.

Ken, about a minute left.

So, so advice you'd give, obviously, developments like this take a long time.

What would advice would you have to another community who's watching as they're thinking about undertaking some of the things you've undertaken?

I think the most important thing is to develop a plan and stay the course.

So I was blessed to have three different mayors I've worked for and they all had similar visions in terms of holding out for the right development, not just the quickest or cheapest or however you would go.

So I think that is the most critical element.

We're blessed because our development was on the river and that had another element.

Not all sites are blessed that way, but but we're really, really thankful for what we've achieved.

Phil, if somebody wants to learn more about what's happening down there, stay in touch with events, those kind of things.

Where do we send?

The best spot would be to go on or Mishawaka Parks, our Facebook page.

Great.

Good guys.

Thank you so much.

Really appreciate you being here today.

Great, great project.

Thank you.

Had a chance to thank you.

That's it for our show today.

Thank you for watching on WNIT.

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I'm Jeff Rea.

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