The Pilot News - Development topic of Bremen Chamber meeting

“When I read the amount of people that were involved in that and all the different committees that Ball State Coordinated, it was a pretty darn good study,” Davis said. “But now we’re talking about 19 years ago. It’s amazing what happened in 19 years.”
The chamber plans to make the study available on their Web site in the future.
Last winter, a team of students from Bethel College completed a comprehensive Healthy Community survey, which is now available at Town Hall for the general public to see.
“Always since 1990 we’ve had people that have been involved in giving feedback and coming up with plans,” Davis said. “For some reason I think we lost sight of the plans.”
Challenges
Davis first presented a list of challenges as far as community development is concerned. One, for example is downtown revitalization. Twenty years ago, a committee raised funds to plant trees and place new trash cans downtown. Now, he said, many people downtown do not like the trees. He also pointed out that many of the buildings are more than 100 years old and in need of a face lift.
“Everyone says we need downtown revitalization,” Davis said.
Transportation infrastructure was another challenge he presented.
“Our town is off the beaten path ever since they put in the bypass,” Davis said. “Thinking forward, how far off the beaten path are we going to be when U.S. 31 becomes a limited-access road? We’ve got to get them off 31. We need to get them onto 6 and then they need to see this destination as a place to go, stop, eat, drink, fuel, stock up on camping goods, lodge.”
For this, he said, a signage project is in the works.
Projects
From these challenges, Davis said, three projects have been developed, including a street light project, historic main street development and a town entrance project.
The street light project will include replacing existing street lights with more up-to-date ones.
“Our street lights are outdated,” he said. “They don’t make parts for them anymore and they’re going to have to go eventually, and they’re just not attractive anymore.”
The proposed replacements, which will cost about $1 million, will have the option for decorative banners that can be changed for occasions like Homespun Holidays or the downtown Christmas lighting. A catch is that, thought the town applied for stimulus money to help fund the lights, they learned the day before the meeting that they did not get the grant. However, they are not deterred.
“So we’re reapplying for that grant in January to hopefully replace the street lights,” Davis said.
Downtown revitalization, Davis said, would mean facade improvement, as well as streetscape enhancements.
“We’re going to need the cooperation of the businesses along the streetscape,” Davis said.
Finally, the entrance project would involve placing large signs at all of Bremen’s entrances, including on U.S. 6 and 106 east and west of town ant at U.S. 6 and S.R. 331. It would also include replacing the sign next to the Sprig O’ Mint golf course and the one near Pla-Mor Campground, which was removed because it had begun falling apart, presenting a safety hazard.
Economic Development
The next part of Davis’s presentation focused on three identified economic development areas. First, Davis said, would be focusing on keeping existing businesses. The second part would be assisting those businesses with growth and expansion.
“We actually have some plans in this area,” Davis said.
The final part would be business recruitment. This includes convincing companies that relocation to this area would be beneficial.
“There’s a lot of good reason to locate to this county,” Davis said. “Three hundred miles from here reaches a greater amount of people than 300 miles from downtown Atlanta.”
The second part involves business creation. Davis said the Small Business Administration (SBA) is currently doing an incubator study to stimulate new business in the area, help them start up, give them space and administrative support and so forth. The third is to develop a marketing plan. Davis said that Bremen’s most-identified strengths were in the areas of healthcare, education, available recreation, the lake, the river, a strong industrial base, the strengths of its faith-based and service-based organizations and its community pride. He also added that Bremen is a safe place to live.
“Those were just all throughout, from 1990 to 2009,” Davis said.
Accomplishments
Even with identified improvements, Davis said, there have been many accomplishments along the way.
“I think this is an accomplishment,” he said, referring to the meeting, and the fact that it was the third one that has taken place.
He listed the already-drafted town entrance plan, which includes graphics showing the proposed signage in place. He also listed the Marshall County Ec-onomic Development Corp-oration, up and running since September, 2007. The corporation has posted a position for an individual to research and write grants for communities throughout the county, and to act as a grant administrator.
Business expansion projects are also among accomplishments he listed.
“You probably don’t hear that much about it,” he said, “but as part of business expansion we had to get a little but creative and go to these businesses and say you need help fiscally? We will help you out of our TIF.”
TIF stands for Tax Incre-ment Financing. When a city or town establishes a TIF district, any increase in the assessed value of the property in that district generates revenue that can be used for more improvements in that district.
While small business services through the Mar-shall County Economic De-velopment Corporation are just up and running, Davis said they will be “a huge deal,” with available services like CPAs, bankers, attorneys, networking and other considerations for starting a new business.
The next step
Davis said the next step will be to complete an income survey to see if Bremen qualifies for any grants through OCRA or the USDA. Normally, Davis said, this would require two separate surveys. However, answering pretty much the same questions twice would have been burdensome for residents, Davis said, so he went to Ball State, and they condensed it into one that is acceptable for both OCRA and the USDA.
Davis said that while OCRA has about $240 million, the most they’ve ever granted was $40 million a year.
“So our frustration is, it’s going to take forever to get that money out,” Davis said.
However, these are not the only options when it comes to funding.
“I’m not even touching the surface of the kinds of grants that are available,” Davis said.