Wabash County plans to use Stellar funding to create welcoming community for all
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Tenille Zartman worked in economic development in Wabash when the city received funding in 2014 through the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs’ Stellar Communities program.
She says that funding laid the groundwork for the next five years of development for the region.
This week, Wabash County was named one of two winners for OCRA’s revamped Stellar Pathways program, and Zartman—now the president and CEO of Grow Wabash County—plans to build on her previous experience to make the $6.5 million award more impactful.
In total, Wabash County will fund 13 projects in the towns of Lagro, La Fontaine, North Manchester, Roann and the city of Wabash. The projects range from park and sidewalk improvements to renovations work on care centers, but the theme that’s central to all of them is making Wabash County a welcoming community for people of all walks of life.
“Out of this Stellar Pathways plan, we came up with two priorities,” Zartman said. “One was to continue stabilizing our population…and the second thing was being welcoming for all.”
Taking care of vulnerable populations is part of that mission. In North Manchester, Wabash County’s proposal calls for a new facility for Daniel’s Place—a nonprofit that provides short-term care for people with physical or mental disabilities to give caregivers a break.
In the city of Wabash, funding is also going towards a complete renovation of the Living Well Senior Center to upgrade all aspects of the building.
More general quality of place projects include improvements to Cook-Crumley Park in La Fontaine, Roann Park in Roann and an extension of the Wabash Riverwalk Trail. North Manchester and Lagro will also see sidewalk improvements.
Zartman felt Wabash County made a strong pitch to OCRA because its governmental and economic officials are all on the same page.
“What is unique about us is our partners were already meeting around the table every month. That started back in 2019 when we decided we needed to combat our greatest challenge—population decline,” Zartman said. “It was a great process for us.”
Grow Wabash County calls its county-wide plan the Imagine One 85 Initiative and brought in Alex Downard to help lead it.
In helping the county through the Stellar Pathways process, Downard emphasized housing and two housing measures will get a piece of the recently announced funding.
One project involves rehabilitating a dilapidated building into three low-income rental units in Wabash. The other is a broader housing infill program that helps subsidize developers to build low- or moderate-income housing on vacant lots. Stellar funding will help pay for four to six new single-family units, the county says.
“It just formalizes what’s been going on in different communities and with different nonprofit organizations and units of government,” Downard said. “We can develop on these lots to show proof of concept to scale beyond the funding that’s afforded through this program.”
The Stellar program stipulates the grant money must be spent within the next five years. Downard said the 13 projects all will move on slightly different timelines, but he praised Wabash County stakeholders for having their projects primed for this moment.
“We do have a lot of projects that are truly shove-ready to where all they’re missing was money. We plugged that gap with Stellar money and now it’s a reality and they can start,” said Downard.