.

Good evening and welcome to Prime Time.

>> I'm Bruce Haines.

Think of it as redevelopment math.

Thirty eight acres eighteen historic buildings, more than a million square feet and also more than two hundred eighty six million dollars alone in phase one financing and you put all those numbers together it adds up to one transformational mixed use district of innovation, energy and culture.

>> It's called electric works.

It's been a journey of multiple years and innumerable meetings that have revealed the partnerships and possibilities necessary for success.

>> Tonight we'll get an update on the progress in electric works as we look ahead to the ribbon cutting season later this year.

With us is Kevin Biggs, partner with electric works developer RTM Ventures and you can join our conversation.

Just call in your questions comments to the number that you see on the screen as we widen out.

Welcome to the program.

Thanks for being here, sir.

>> Bruce , thanks for having me.

Great to be here.

I remember back in round twenty seventeen a lot of the community at that time was introduced to the name Electric Works.

This is what was given to it and we've been anxiously following from the bleachers ever since.

But I'm wondering what it's been like for you even before 2017.

>> What do you remember of the first time that you heard of a possible redevelopment at the old GE campus?

>> Yeah, well it takes me way back, Bruce , but probably early.

>> Twenty sixteen was the first conception at least in my mind of a potential project here on the old General Electric campus and it wasn't until May of twenty sixteen that we all picked up the headlines of the newspaper that day and it read that broker out of Indianapolis was running a process for General Electric to seek a development entity to come and redevelop this campus.

>> So that was really the turning point for me and the rest of my team and it was truly the project that brought this team together and helped cast this vision.

>> And I think vision will be the one of the words we use quite frequently in our time together here today because when you look at the campus lineup itself, we have a photo showing just how big thirty nine acres can actually be.

>> That's a lot of vision to absorb it.

What it was and I can take a small part of the credit for that vision but largely it was the team that was brought together.

My partner Josh Parker who has built a career on doing work of this size and scale as well as then Jeff Kingsbury and that team has now grown to include also in the general partner interest Tim Ash and Larry Weigand makes up the the ownership team essentially for electric works.

>> Yeah, I think one of the great trivia questions when when that game comes up for parole electric which will be who is or what does the RTM and RTM ventures stand for that is a great question and I hope I get this right because it's been many years since we can see this.

But my partner Josh is reading one of the old historic books on the campus and Robert T. McDowell I think was one of the original founders on the campus and so it's it's an omeje to to this man that was very important part of this campus over a hundred years ago.

>> Yeah.

So it seemed applicable at very, very applicable and you'll put a team together to carry the legacy from Fort Wayne Electric Company up through to the forties or so when General Electric really moved in and had its presence and the whole vicinity became such an important fixture even caused traffic to change directions I think is the coming going of the workday as you were putting your team together by way of Segway, how did Baltimore, Maryland, Durham, North Carolina, Indianapolis and Decatur all get together?

>> Great question.

It truly was this campus that brought this team together and I being the local entity Fort Wayne has always been home for me my backyard I grew up in Adams County.

Our business has been headquartered there for now for sixty years, three generations.

>> But it was through this request for proposal process that we summoned that brought the attention of my partner Josh Parker from Durham, North Carolina to come up and visit Fort Wayne , Indiana and Jeff, my other partner Jeff Kingsbury actually is from this region grew up here in Fort Wayne , went to Homestead High School and then started to build his family down in central Indiana and now lives in Carmel.

But it was this project that brought us all together and a certain fashion and that's how the partnership was formed.

>> I wonder if how much money you would have if for every nickel that would be put forward for the use of the words mixed use in trying to define what electric works potential is.

>> We hear that in a lot of the city development projects that that are going on it's an important mixed use facility.

>> Your definition of that and how does that translate into this campus culture right now?

>> Yeah, so so by definition the mixed use sort of there are a number of different uses that are being brought forth by this campus.

Primarily the commercial leasing activity is the largest of this campus.

So the office space I do it best and medical informatics engineering SDI those that office space is the primary driver both kind of economically and by the space there that it's taking up on the campus.

But other uses that we have there the the school that is about to open by Fort Wayne community schools, the the retail component which would be the restaurants, the Union Street market, the education component where we have a presence with Indiana Tech, Indiana University and strong interest from Ball State different mixes of uses another use that was originally planned in phase one was the residential component.

We had two floors of building twenty six plan for lofted apartment units and do it best came along.

We were oversubscribed on our office space so we actually had to move that into a future phase which is now part of phase two which will have three hundred I'm sorry two hundred and ninety six brand new apartments that will surround the garage.

So those are a number of the different uses that are applicable to the campus.

>> And so the map was being shown you could see the diversity in tendency at electric works there's mixed use and then there is adaptive reuse which is where the historic nature of the structure comes in.

>> I guess true by definition the adaptive reuse as these buildings weren't built for apartments and commercial office, they were built for manufacturing back over one hundred years ago which is really interesting when you look at manufacturing facilities built in this era, one of the very important elements was you need a natural light for the workers.

So therefore these buildings are very linear and shape walls of windows and they're perfect for this adaptive reuse into other uses.

Now you fast forward by a few decades and you look at the buildings that get built on the Taylor Street campus just down the way and now you're in the era of fluorescent light fixtures and where now you have a see under one roof and one story buildings and that was the productive way that manufacturing was done during that era.

>> So it's really interesting and unique how the lineage of these buildings was perfectly suited for this type of adaptive reuse and the collection of buildings that we have here are some of the finest in the country for this type of a high dense mixed use redevelopment.

>> It really leaves out the freeze of everything old being new again and that the first hundred years were great, you know, sit back comfy the second hundred years look pretty darn good too.

>> So much so that we're going to pull one of those years out and ask Kevin to share with us what we'll be watching.

We're going to look at some video from two different points in time.

We have some drone footage in both cases but the first is from March of twenty twenty one a very happy month.

That was when phase one financing was finally wrapped up.

And Kevin , tell us what we're taking a look at here.

>> Yeah, sure.

So um yeah very much a before image of the campus when we did have some of the environmental remediation well underway and completed this time but just on the cusp of really the full renovation of the campus and you can see those old tired windows and know a lot of the decayed facade on the lintels on the exterior and that's the do it best building close then right off that is actually we're looking at building twenty six large five storey yeah.

We're looking down what we call Dynamo Alley now which is runs coming from west to east in the campus.

This will be really the the heartbeat the campus all pedestrian pavers surface through their yeah just this is interesting great imagery and boy it sure looks very different than when we're on the campus now today as we're we're nearing completion of the of the restoration having this vision of saying I see what I what I see is I can accept and where we could go is what I get up in the morning for .

I mean you have to forgive me is that the the health of clinic I think toward the front of building nineteen possibly but all of this numerics with those numbers were original to the campus.

They were so yeah.

And we preserve those numbers and they will still identify those buildings going forward.

There's there was no replacement of those iconic building numbers over the years.

>> Now let's fast forward to just within the last several days, a couple of weeks we have new video of electric works thanks to our friends at Weigand Construction.

>> And Kevin , what a difference 12 months makes.

Absolutely.

I think probably the most visually shocking and noticeable change that began no probably five or six months ago was the replacement of the windows.

And as you can see these these beautiful new windows in the buildings that are historic replicas of the original windows that were put in these buildings over a hundred years ago because of the historic tax credit funding source we are required to restore these buildings back to their original natural glory.

And so as you until it has really transformed now on the interior shots that we see now, these are shots of the Fort Wayne community schools and plan which they're very close to moving in.

This is an exterior shot of the gymnasium, the club there's an interior shot.

I just was walking people through there earlier today that reminiscent of shooting baskets in there.

Thirty, forty years ago and that space will become event space for weddings, banquets, meetings into the future.

Here's a new imagery of building twenty six the exterior of the best space they're taking about eighty percent of that building.

There will be a little bit of other multitenant space in building twenty six for for other folks still a little site work left to be done here yet but we're really nearing the end of a lot of that exterior work.

A lot of the pavers have gone down there some interior imagery the best space the top floor is almost move-in ready for them now as we kind of work our way down the other floors that they'll be occupying.

>> So here's a great imagery of the exterior of the Union Street market which we're looking at building twenty and then just beyond is building twenty to the interior spaces here will be the market kind of divided into two spaces which would be the grocery store side of the market and then we have the restaurant side of the market and each will have somewhere between 10 to 12 different operators in these parts of those spaces.

>> We'll just be this great amenity for the region and we have one building that is new construction on the campus which we're looking at here right now which is building thirty three about forty five thousand feet of new construction space.

We had the area on the footprint of the first phase to build that space and we had a market study that showed the demand for it and so it became part of phase one as well big parking facility obviously you got to wonder everyone's got to go somewhere.

>> Yeah, absolutely.

We just saw a few images there of the parking facility which is part of phase two which was that construction was really started at the beginning of this year and that will be the primary area for parking for this campus as we move into later months this year we will start the residential will wrap that will surround that parking garage and produce two hundred and ninety six apartments that will blend right into that west central neighborhood.

>> Incredible and even so much so I mean the drones still did not cover all that was possible to bring to us.

That's how large over a million square feet can be if you put your mind to it some of that square footage is is being used for a concept that has been with us in different flavors but particularly now the logistic support the concept and that is coworking talk to us about what that is and what are the folks that are doing to assist in that?

>> Yeah, sure.

So the the basement area of building a nineteen will is where what I consider one of the most important elements of this innovation district which is the innovation space.

Forty thousand feet of innovation space which in large part is made up of coworking space.

So you can imagine if you're a young entrepreneur or a business owner growing a business and you need space but you don't want to go out and lease and tie up yourself in a long lease and office space you can buy a monthly membership, have access to this coworking space where you have really all your essential elements your Internet connection, your ability to print conference rooms and most importantly that you are surrounded by like minded other individuals that are on this journey with you.

This space will be highly programed by folks Carr Workplaces, a national company that we've invited here to come manage this space for us.

They have experience in other major metro areas from coast to coast and managing and programing coworking spaces and innovation spaces like this so very excited about delivering this space.

It will be certainly unique for this market not in the sense that we've never seen coworking here in Fort Wayne before but certainly not on this breadth and scale with the different programmatic efforts around it.

>> It will really be very unique.

Well, it's about ten minutes until August and there have been dates that have been cast of folks who are ready to put out welcome mats.

>> Where are we now with the electric works renovation timetable we our first space we have delivered to Fort Wayne Community Schools for their AMPE lab and they are rapidly putting the final touches on the fit and finish and furniture and equipment for these students to take hold of this campus here in just a few weeks.

So really exciting.

I know you had Riley on the show here recently and he's done a phenomenal job as I've been taking folks through on tours, Riley has been burning the candle at both ends and there I see him in after hours and he's graciously stopped and given some great presentation descriptions of what this element is going to be on the campus and how important it is for this innovation district and what a unique opportunity for Fort Wayne community schools to do something very unique and different in this community.

So that's the first space that we're delivering is the Fort Wayne community schools.

The next wave will really come here as we enter the fourth quarter of this year and the October to early November timeframe will be when do it best will be taking their space along with a few other tenants that sign early leases and have their spaces come online.

So essentially we will be open to the public in that kind of mid October timeframe.

That's when the Union Street market will come to life and be serving people in that space as well.

>> There are still some points of vision to share and let's just touch on a few of these some of the renderings that that are out there that are still, if you will, almost ready they're their own really large welcome mat.

This is Dinamo Elegante right?

Yeah.

This is an image of of that kind of central spine in the outside.

Yeah.

Yeah right right down the middle Dinamo alley I think this perspective is looking at building nineteen.

This was one of the early renderings that our architect team provided and yeah, here is another image.

This is also looking down Dynamo Alley from a little different perspective.

Boy, you could almost absent of the trees in this image you can walk onto the campus now and really start to see these elements coming to fruition with the new windows.

There's a great image of building twenty where the the Union Street market will be existing as well as we have some commercial space above.

Here's here's a really interesting interior image of what the Union Street market will look like.

This is taken from the southwest corner of Building Twenty two.

One of the most remarkable buildings in my opinion on the campus that had these enormous two storey sweeping high ceilings, enormous crane rails that still exists there.

We've kept a lot of the historic elements in these spaces but this will be an incredibly lively public realm area and just outside of the building 20 to the market here is a shot looking across what we call the beer garden.

So you can see in this image the Union Street market kind of in the background there will be big overhead glass doors that will roll up and allow this food hall to spill out into this beautiful open space with outdoor fire pits and seating and actually a stage for live performances.

>> This is really going to be an exciting and exciting space and I think the image here is actually one of the images that was early on a producer early on that incorporated some of a college park in East campus which we have not touched yet other than for some staging for the construction activities that's going on at West Campus and this is our last one but it's a postcard kind of shot.

It is.

It is.

There's so much outdoor public realm space that complements this very high, dense mixed use space and we're really pleased to have that.

The McCulloh Park has been hosting the farmer's market here over the last season or two and we've got people used to coming down to the farmer's market in this end of town and obviously whenever the campus opens up that farmer's market will exist then in electric work so excited to have them as they are.

>> The feeling is more than mutual from all other reports Kim, we continue to peek under the curtain with phase two .

>> What what kinds of you know, we haven't even you know, totally celebrated all of all of phase one.

>> But this is like this just the way we're all we're all built when momentum's available.

Sure.

Yeah.

So for for many years we always refer to phase two of electric works as the other historic buildings on the east side of Broadway.

However, we turned our attention north of the railroad tracks and phase two is now the development of the parking garage with that residential wrap that surrounds it.

>> I also would be remiss to mention that part of phase two will be an early childhood learning center and daycare as well as a new restaurant space on the first floor of one of the buildings front of Broadway.

In addition, as a fitness center.

So so phase two will be the parking garage plus the residential apartments and we now refer to the other historic part of the campus as just east campus which will be a future phase probably phase three.

>> We intend to start to turn our attention to the east side of Broadway here after we really get phase two off and running and we believe that as we kind of finish leasing up this final twenty five to thirty percent of West campus that that will start to build the pipeline for East Campus and inform what East campus will ultimately come to fruition as we do we do believe we've always kind of had the intent of some hospitality to be a part of East campus so a boutique hotel a little higher focus on residential with some loft IT apartments over there but it will also have some similarities to West Campus with again office space and retail and those elements.

>> I think one last question go over here on this one there is the American Tobacco campus in Durham.

There is the Ponce City Market in Atlanta.

I'm wondering what your thought is on electric works thinking of them as cousins in economic impact and ultimately what you think the rebirth of a space such as electric works will mean for Fort Wayne and the region?

>> That's a big question and I'll tell you those those projects you mentioned particularly the American Tobacco Campus in Durham was very inspirational to our team.

Our lead partner Josh Parker who lives in Durham did have a hand in the development the redevelopment of that campus and it really kind of set the tone of how in this country these beautiful old spaces can be redeveloped into campuses with an innovation at its core ,Durham was completely transformed by the rebirth of that space that really again was an inspiration to us.

>> What we could see happen with electric works.

>> So what it could look like and what this means for Fort Wayne I'll give you one element of inspiration and I received in the discussion on the American Tobacco campus that innovation space has been the result of over three billion dollars of exits that companies have been birthed and grown and enrolled up and have sold and largely have remained on that campus in the order of over a 10 to 15 year period.

We think that is entirely possible here in Fort Wayne as well with the electric works innovation space.

>> Kevin Biggs has been our guest.

He is a partner in RTM Ventures and also deeply involved in area construction and building and it has been a true joy.

Thank you sir.

If you would like to follow along you can from your computer click on over to Fort Wayne Electric Works dot com and stay tuned for more on the evolution of this economic impact.

Bold new step forward for the region as the weeks continue here on prime time for all of us with the show, I'm Bruce Haines.

Thanks for watching.

Take care.

We'll see you next week.

Goodnight