Montgomery County’s “if you build it, they will come” approach to bringing new jobs to the Nucor Road corridor is making progress, economic development officials say.
“We all know that 2020 has been a very unusual year and has called all of us to rethink the way that we do business,” said Ron Dickerson, president of the Montgomery County Redevelopment Commission, which delivered its annual update to stakeholders Tuesday.
Dickerson said the commission has made an “enormous amount of progress” on projects to attract developers, “despite the challenges of doing business through a pandemic.”
The six-member commission works with various consultants to spur business growth in the Nucor TIF district, which includes the area around Nucor Steel, north of State Road 32 and east of the Interstate 74/32 interchange.
Here is the latest on the ongoing projects:
Thoroughfare plan
A layout has been drawn of a proposed truck route that would provide quicker access to the industrial corridor, county engineer Jim Peck said.
The route is part of a long-range thoroughfare plan adopted by the Board of Commissioners in 2019 that looked at road networks in the county.
Traffic would move on U.S. 231 to C.R. 300S and continue east to U.S. 136, picking up C.R. 775E to State Road 32.
Water line expansion
Work is continuing to extend water service to the Nucor Road corridor, said John Frey, who sits on the commission. Crews have laid about half of the water line along State Road 32.
The agreement with Indiana American Water called for a 16-inch main to be installed, but workers are laying a 20-inch main.
“So evidently, they see the potential out there bigger than we did,” Frey said.
The first phase of the project is expected to be complete in a few months, Frey said. Eventually, water service will be extended along Nucor Road to U.S. 136 and on to C.R. 500S.
Wastewater
A significant expansion of the collection system for the corridor’s wastewater treatment plant was completed this year.
Nearly 45,000 linear feet of piping was added to expand sanitary sewer service to customers beyond the original service area.
Site selectors consider access to a sanitary sewer line crucial when scoping out properties.
“Without infrastructure, economic development is not impossible, but site selectors are going to go elsewhere,” said Lana Beregszazi, founder and CEO of BCS Management, which designed the expansion.
The project also included the decommissioning of more than 50 failing septic tanks in the Chigger Hollow subdivision off Nucor Road, Beregszazi said.
Design work is underway on a project to expand the capacity of the treatment plant, which can handle 100,000 gallons of treated wastewater daily.
The project calls for increasing the volume by 600 gallons in two increments, depending on the amount of waste generated by new users.
Future stages of the project could expand the capacity up to 1.2 million gallons per day.
Residential and site development
Faced with the ongoing shortage of housing and land for new homes, the commission is reaching out to developers.
A couple of developers are looking at specific sites to start building, Frey said.
Following an inventory of potentially available parcels, a consultant reached out to homeowners throughout the Nucor Road corridor to determine who may be interested in selling.
The focus is on sites capable of large-scale use or with room for multiple buildings.
The commission plans to partner with an Indianapolis-based commercial real estate firm to market available properties to investors.
