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Dec 05 2019
Love0

More Elkhart River District improvements coming this spring

By Elkhart, Featured News No Comments

The makeover of downtown Elkhart’s River District is continuing over the next several months.

Design concepts for several new public features were unveiled at a November 21 public meeting, and the River District Implementation Team is seeking feedback on the look of the plans.

This drawing shows an overhead view of the town green-style park along Jackson Boulevard near the new Martin’s Super Market. The park would be completed sometime in 2020. (Image Courtesy Insight Strategic Concepts)

Work is expected to start in early 2020 on three of the projects:

  • The town green public park adjacent to the new Martin’s grocery store that is under construction. The park will feature a central water feature, multiple walking paths snaking through the space, and many seating areas in and around the trees and green space. The park will be bounded by Jackson Boulevard, JA Drive and Lexington Avenue, which is being extended from where it ends now.
  • An access point to the Elkhart River at the end of JA Drive that includes seating, landscaping and parking suitable for canoeists and kayakers to use as they access the launch.
  • Removal of the low flow dam on the Elkhart River near East Street. This will enable public access to the river from that point all the way to the St. Joseph River and Island Park.

This drawing shows proposed improvements to the Jackson Boulevard bridge in Elkhart’s River District. (Image Courtesy Insight Strategic Concepts)

Other projects that are in the works are improvements to the Jackson Boulevard bridge that will improve the bridge’s aesthetics and make it a more pleasant walking experience between Main Street and the River District.

Also, the RiverWalk around the Elkhart Health & Aquatics center is constructed and will connect to Lundquist Park off Elkhart Avenue and provide access to the footbridge to Island Park.

Nov 22 2019
Love1

Save the date: Something Big is coming January 22, 2020

By Countywide, Elkhart, Featured News, Goshen, Middlebury & Bristol, Nappanee & Wakarusa 2 Comments

No question Elkhart County is a more awesome place every day, but how do you celebrate that?

Not just any big event will do. We’ve got The Big Event in the works.

Mark down the evening of January 22, 2020, on your calendar for an amazing night at The Lerner Theatre in downtown Elkhart.

We’re going to celebrate all the people who make Elkhart County a special place, but especially the 60-plus Little Big Idea Grant winners and the Vibrant People of Elkhart County.

You’ll hear about the big plans we have for 2020 and how you can get more engaged in our neighborhoods, civic organizations, and charities.

Best of all, you’ll find out all about Elkhart County’s new destination brand. It’s really going to turbo-charge all the wonderful work we’ve done and elevate us to even higher levels.

Last but not least, we’ll be seeing a familiar face — Peter Kageyama — the speaker who helped us kick off this exciting journey at another big event in January 2016.

His talk energized us all and confirmed that we are on the right path. Kageyama’s coming back to celebrate with us and help us see the next steps as we build an ever more vibrant Elkhart County.

We’ll be sharing more details about this event as we get closer. Stay tuned.

Nov 12 2019
Love1

Will you be one of our Vibrant Champions?

By Countywide, Elkhart, Featured News, Goshen, Middlebury & Bristol, Nappanee & Wakarusa No Comments

Do you think you’re Elkhart County’s biggest fan?

Do you favor locally owned restaurants and breweries, taking photos of your dinner and posting them on social media? 

When you shop for Christmas gifts, do you buy from local artisans so that your loved ones always have a little heavenly slice of Elkhart County with them?

Does volunteering for a local charity, or reading to kids in the classroom, or donating your time and treasure to help your neighbors make you feel all warm inside?

Being involved in Elkhart County activities makes you a Vibrant Champion

Then you might already be a Vibrant Champion!

But we think you know many other Vibrant Champions.

2020 will be a year in which we want all Vibrant Champions to shout it from the rooftops, to keep on doing what you do, and bringing your friends, neighbors and co-workers along. 

It’s a program in which you pledge to be an engaged resident of Elkhart County and keep on making our hometown a great place to live, work, play and invest.

To help get this program started, we ask you to take a quick survey:

Need more details? See below.

Oct 29 2019
Love0
Elkhart Housing Strategy

Elkhart deploying housing strategy to improve opportunities to gain more residents

By Elkhart, Featured News 6 Comments

Elkhart doesn’t lack for strengths.

With only 1.6 percent of Indiana’s population, the city makes up 3.4 percent of the state’s manufacturing output. One out of 45 jobs in Indiana is in Elkhart.

Elkhart is a powerful economic engine, but one of its components is in need of repair: housing. The good news? The fix is underway, with the State and Division neighborhood targeted as a pilot program for strategies for the rest of the city.

Elkhart Housing Strategy

Abby Wiles outlined a four-pronged approach to improved housing in Elkhart. It includes the housing supply, financials, education and outreach, and policy and regulations.

Proposals to address Elkhart’s housing shortage – and to boost the amount of affordable housing – were presented during a recent Vibrant Communities Community Champions Roundtable at the Roosevelt Center.

Vibrant Communities organizers are planning to focus attention on qualities that affect neighborhoods in 2020, including housing but also on things such as walkability and connectivity and amenities such as parks, green spaces and gathering places.

A study done by enFocus Inc., in partnership with the Elkhart Redevelopment Commission, concluded that there is a nearly 5,000-unit housing deficit in the city of Elkhart. Also reported at the roundtable was that 64 percent of Elkhart’s workforce commutes in from outside the area. That’s a constraint on the local economy.

“This all presents a lost opportunity,” said Abby Wiles, Elkhart’s assistant director of community and redevelopment.

Wiles outlined a four-pronged approach to improved housing in Elkhart. It includes the housing supply, financials, education and outreach, and policy and regulations.

“We need to make development easy,” she said.

For the full Elkhart housing study and a comprehensive list of recommendations, visit elkhartindiana.org/housingstrategy.

The next Community Champions Roundtable, tentatively planned for February 2020, will continue the discussion on housing and neighborhoods with a look at a nearby case study in South Bend.

Oct 01 2019
Love0
Excellence shines through in each of Elkhart County’s schools

Excellence shines through in each of Elkhart County’s schools

By Countywide, Elkhart, Featured News, Goshen, Middlebury & Bristol, Nappanee & Wakarusa No Comments

Next-level learning. Skills training. Planning for the future. Community involvement. Innovation.

All are hallmarks of the school districts in Elkhart County. Community leaders have made education a top priority here – and it shows.

Goshen Community Schools is home to an International Baccalaureate program of advanced study. The program was implemented in 2008. In addition to educational benefits, there’s also a potential dollars-and-cents incentive – many colleges offer credit for IB courses taken in high school.

Fairfield Community Schools offers a host of vocational programs, including cosmetology, building trades, health services, agricultural sciences, tool and die, auto mechanics, welding, and others. At Fairfield, graduating seniors have the opportunity to walk out of school and into a rewarding job right away.

Elkhart Community Schools offers the Elkhart Culture Series, a program designed to engage students and community members in cultural experiences and opportunities. Special guests have included an original Freedom Rider, a Holocaust survivor, and a survivor of the Rwandan Genocide.

Wa-Nee Community Schools is part of a local campaign called WaNee Vision 2020. The project is a joint collaboration between the city of Nappanee, The Boys & Girls Clubs of Elkhart County, Wa-Nee Community Schools, Family Christian Development Center, and Elder Haus Senior Center of Nappanee, with support from the Town of Wakarusa. The goal is to create a better community for people of all ages.

At Middlebury Community Schools, officials recently broke ground on a $15 million athletics complex on the Northridge High School campus. The facility will have baseball, softball, and football fields. Also at MCS: Northridge Middle School is a School to Watch, a designation earned from the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades.

At Concord Community Schools, work is underway on the College and Career Readiness addition at Concord High School. According to the Concord Connection, the wing will include five new classrooms, including an updated functional skills space, a “dirty lab” where students can learn mechanical skills, and a “clean lab” complete with 3D printers and tabletop CNC equipment. Other projects underway at Concord Community Schools include the 10,000-square-foot Concord Fitness and Performance Center, as well as the MOVE UP Academy, a virtual learning program.

Last fall at Baugo Community Schools, all kindergartners and first- and second-graders at Jimtown Elementary School visited Bethel College. According to WNDU, it was part of an awareness push to prepare students to open a 529 account to save for college.

Thank you, Elkhart County schools, for all you do to educate the leaders of tomorrow!

Excellence shines through in each of Elkhart County’s schools
Excellence shines through in each of Elkhart County’s schools

Thank you, Elkhart County schools, for all you do to educate the leaders of tomorrow!

Aug 09 2019
Love0

Stage, cafe highlight proposed improvements to Elkhart’s Central Park

By Elkhart, Featured News 4 Comments

The crowd spreads their blankets on the wide terraces in front of the new Central Park stage. As the band sets up for their show, enticing smells waft from the food trucks lined up on Waterfall Drive. As the Central Park lawn fills up, more people gather in the shade of trees lining High Street and on the patio of the new cafe.

This scene of a beautiful summer evening has been brought to you by the designers of a proposed renovation of downtown Elkhart’s Central Park.

The design concepts were presented in early July. Now residents of Elkhart can offer their feedback on the project’s website (click on the Contact button to leave a comment).

Elkhart residents review proposed changes to Elkhart’s Central Park at a public event July 3, 2019.

The designs by Rundell Ernstberger Associates were influenced by public comments made at sessions in fall 2018 to identify what improvements Elkhart residents wanted to Central Park and Civic Plaza. Features of the proposed changes include:

  • A stage in Central Park near the corner of High Street and Waterfall Drive.
  • The stage faces a terraced green space that has three tiers.
  • A shaded area lining High Street equipped with cafe tables and chairs that could be blocked off for special events.
  • A stand-alone building featuring a cafe with indoor/outdoor seating, and separate restrooms.
  • Waterfall Drive is designed to be shut down for food trucks or other vendors during events, and open to traffic at other times.

The proposed renovations will be considered by the Elkhart Redevelopment Commission sometime in fall 2019.

Jul 31 2019
Love1

Just how vibrant are we? Research setting baseline for Elkhart County

By Countywide, Elkhart, Featured News, Goshen, Middlebury & Bristol, Nappanee & Wakarusa No Comments

Building vibrant communities in Elkhart County has always been the ongoing goal, but it’s challenging to know how you’re doing when you’re not sure where you started.

With that question as a backdrop, more than 50 community leaders from Elkhart County’s business, non-profit, municipal and community development realms met on Thursday, July 25, to hear more about how to, well, measure vibrancy.

The setting for the discussion was a community room in the sprawling 171,000-square-foot Elkhart Health & Aquatics Center, one of the largest projects listed in Vibrant Communities’ Action Agenda assembled in 2016.

And with more projects being completed and momentum building in Elkhart, Goshen, Nappanee, Middlebury, Bristol and Wakarusa, it was time for the Vibrant Communities movement to define how it would keep track of vibrancy.

How to measure vibrancy was the topic of the day at a Community Champions Roundtable on Thursday, July 25, 2019, at the Elkhart Health & Aquatics Center.

Working with Indiana University South Bend’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Vibrant Communities organizers developed a survey of Elkhart County residents as well as the gathering of demographic data about the community.

The data includes everything from economic performance measures to educational attainment, health factors, crime and safety, and housing. That will be matched with the results of a survey in which Elkhart County residents are asked to rank the area on topics such as community pride, social offerings such as arts and culture and parks, and openness of residents to others.

  • Marshall V. King, a free-lance journalist who wrote the Love Where You Live series for Vibrant Communities in 2018, attended the gathering and wrote a column for the South Bend Tribune. Read Marshall’s thoughts on the metrics.

The survey so far has 371 results from 4,000 sent to randomly selected addresses in Elkhart County. While that number of survey results gives a good baseline, IUSB researchers intend to review the demographics of the respondents and fill in gaps that may exist to assure that the survey sample is representative of Elkhart County’s population.

By sometime this fall, it’s expected for the data and survey results to be available on the Vibrant Communities website.

Jul 17 2019
Love5

Welcome to the Elkhart Health & Aquatics Center!

By Countywide, Elkhart, Featured News 3 Comments

That big splash today in downtown Elkhart?

That’s the opening of the game-changing Elkhart Health & Aquatics Center in the heart of the city’s River District.

Excitement built steadily over the last two years of construction and hundreds flocked to preview nights and open houses ahead of the opening Thursday, July 18, 2019.

At the “ribbon” cutting ceremony (actually it was banner of colorful pennants used at swimming pools) on Monday, July 15, leaders lauded the collaboration and public-private partnerships that made the $70 million, 170,000-square-foot aquatics center a reality.

The “ribbon” cutting ceremony on Monday, July 15, 2019, actually featured a ribbon of pennants used in swimming facilities.

Elkhart Health & Aquatics will include:

  • A competition pool with seating for 1,200 spectators.
  • Racquetball and squash courses.
  • Exercise studios and a “fitness floor” for weights and exercise equipment.
  • An indoor running track.
  • A gym equipped for two full basketball courts or a number of other sports.
  • A sports medicine and physical therapy clinic.
  • A therapy pool, lap pool, and whirlpool.

“This is going to be a mecca,” one of the aquatics center visitors said Monday.

While memberships are being sold for the pool and fitness areas, there is considerable free public access to the facility. A community center, called The Commons,” takes up one end of the building and includes a large atrium, a separate meeting room, and a smaller library. Free public hours for the pool will be on Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons.

A large atrium is intended to be a community gathering place for the Elkhart Health & Aquatics Center.

During a sneak peek for the media and various dignitaries Monday, Mayor Tim Neese said the aquatics center will make a positive difference in people’s lives on a daily basis. He added that the center’s opening will help Elkhart “take its place among the great American cities.”

“Investments like this one are critical to our city’s growth,” Neese said.

The center will be the home pool to both Elkhart Community Schools’ and Bethel University’s aquatics sports programs. Memberships are available, and programming will be available to the overall community, too.

The lion’s share of the project budget came from private investors, both individuals and businesses, combining with investments from the Community Foundation of Elkhart County, Beacon Health System and Elkhart Community Schools that helped leverage $9 million from the state of Indiana’s Regional Cities program. The project is the largest to have been completed from the Vibrant Communities Action Agenda that was built from community input in 2016.

 

Jul 09 2019
Love3

Tell us what you think of downtown: Answer our survey on your downtown’s vibrancy

By Countywide, Elkhart, Featured News, Goshen, Middlebury & Bristol, Nappanee & Wakarusa No Comments

No matter which downtown you go to in Elkhart County — Elkhart, Goshen, Nappanee, Middlebury, Wakarusa or Bristol — there are parts to like and other parts that could be improved.

A team at enFocus has been working hard on research, interviewing downtown business owners and people who work in a downtown, and also conducting focus groups.

The final stage of the research project is a survey open to all Elkhart County residents. Click here to take the survey.

The research is a project commissioned by the Elkhart County Convention & Visitors Bureau to assess conditions in each of the downtown areas in Elkhart County. The project is specifically seeking feedback on retail and commerce, housing, events, partnerships, diversity, and design and aesthetics in the downtown areas.

Jul 08 2019
Love0

How do you measure vibrancy? Next Community Champions Roundtable to explore research methods

By Countywide, Elkhart, Featured News No Comments

The Vibrant Communities movement is getting serious about the numbers, and the next Community Champions Roundtable will offer a more in-depth look at how we will measure “vibrancy” in Elkhart County.

From 8 to 10 a.m. Thursday, July 25, community leaders representing a wide diversity of sectors — the arts, business, parks, economic development, non-profit, and more — are invited to attend the next Community Champions Roundtable from 8 to 10 a.m. Thursday, July 25, at the brand new Elkhart Health Fitness and Aquatics Center, 200 E. Jackson Blvd., Elkhart.

The sparkling new gem of Elkhart County was selected as the location partially because it represents one of the biggest tangible areas of progress since Vibrant Communities launched in 2016 to advocate for investment in quality of place and placemaking as a means toward economic development, talent attraction and retention, and community pride.

Zachary Schrank of Indiana University South Bend will be the primary speaker. Schrank, an assistant professor at IUSB’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology, has been leading a study of the key measurable indicators that reveal aspects of Elkhart County’s vibrancy. The study includes a significant survey of Elkhart County residents and their views of this community.

Schrank’s talk will include a review of the metrics that are being measured and why they are important. There will also be an opportunity for small-group discussion on these topics.

While the vibrancy metrics data is still being gathered and analyzed, a summary of the findings will be made available when ready on the Vibrant Communities website.

Community leaders interested in attending should email Cindy Ostrom at [email protected]. The event will include breakfast and, afterward, tours of the new Elkhart Health Fitness and Aquatics Center will be offered.

Educate. Advocate. Celebrate.

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