Residential Community Lands Regional Cities Funding

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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA nearly $55 million residential community planned near Victoria National Golf Club in Warrick County has received a $2 million boost from the statewide Regional Cities Initiative. The project is located on more than 400 acres and will include 550 units, parks and trails that will tie-in to the Warrick County Trail system. Economic Development Coalition of Southwest Indiana Chief Executive Officer Greg Wathen likens the community to the Village of West Clay in Carmel or Norton Commons outside of Louisville and says it will "ratchet-up the competition" for talent attraction and retention.
Wathen says participation in Regional Cities has changed the economic development conversation. "It’s getting to us to focus on, not so much transactional economic development, but as what do we need to strategically do to in order change and transform the community so we can attract people, which helps, in turn, attract new investment." He says it will help the region build a national brand, which is a hallmark of the statewide program. "It allows people to understand what is the possibility of us becoming in the future and that’s been pretty exciting in itself."
The community will be located on land that was once home to a mining operation and will provide an experience that Wathen says will be unlike anything else currently available in southwest Indiana, southeast Illinois and northwest Kentucky. Planning and design work is already underway and a groundbreaking is slated for early next year. Move-in could begin in early-2018.