Page last updated on February 9, 2023 at 8:26 pm
Each week, Mayor Hamilton, Deputy Mayor Carmichael, and other city employees provide video updates on recent news and initiatives. Access all of the weekly video updates at bloomington.in.gov/videoupdates.
Join Deputy Mayor Mary Catherine Carmichael and Economic and Sustainable Development Director Alex Crowley as they discuss the recent $1.9 million grant from the Indiana Uplands READI Steering Committee and Regional Opportunity Initiatives for a local infrastructure project.
Bloomington will receive $1.9 million in grant funding through the state's Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative (READI) program. These funds are designated for an Infrastructure Project with City of Bloomington Utilities (CBU), that will benefit not only Monroe, but Brown, Greene, Lawrence, Martin, Morgan, and Owen Counties.
CBU will use READI funding to replace 1,570 feet of clay sewer pipe, improving flow from South Patterson and downstream along an arterial corridor. This improvement creates increased manufacturing opportunities, including expansion at Catalent, which is advantageous to employers looking to expand and create job opportunities.
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Transcript
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
Hi, I'm Deputy Mayor Mary Catherine Carmichael, and I'm joined today by Alex Crowley, our Director of Economic and Sustainable Development here in the City of Bloomington. And we're having a nice amount of money come into the city, so let's talk about what it's about, where it's coming from, and its intended purpose. We'll start with a definition if we can, because this is a term that many of us are not familiar with. What is a READI grant?
Alex Crowley:
That's right. So a READI grant is actually a regional grant and it is facilitated by the Regional Opportunities Initiative. We are part of the Indiana Uplands Region, which is an 11-county region, and Monroe County's part of that. And on our behalf and with our coordination, they applied for this grant. And READI stands for Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative, and it's a state program.
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
Okay, great. So it's going to be benefiting Bloomington, but also the whole region.
Alex Crowley:
That's right. Because in this particular case, the grant, and we'll get into the details, but the grant is to help facilitate employment opportunities in a facility here in Bloomington, a private facility, but that actually draws on a huge employment ship.
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
So it's $1.9 million, but that's actually leveraging a much larger investment, is that right?
Alex Crowley:
Yeah, one of the reasons I believe this was attractive to the state is because Catalent is making a significant investment, this is to help with utility infrastructure and support Catalent's expansion. They made a $350 million commitment in terms of capital investment in their facilities, and they're also growing the facility employment by a thousand jobs over the course of a number of years.
And to help facilitate that, the City of Bloomington supported that expansion with a tax abatement of our own. One of the things that was appealing to the state was a certain amount of investment by them was helping to catalyze, if you will, all of the other investments that were happening.
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
That makes sense. And Bloomington is such a regional employer, I know we have a lot of people from these other counties that are part of this grant, they come here for employment.
Alex Crowley:
They do, and that happens with a lot of things. We actually receive a lot of employees from outside of Monroe County into businesses in Monroe County and the City of Bloomington. We also send a number of people out, so a lot of people who live in Bloomington will work, for example, at Crane. So there's a fair amount of movement between counties.
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
Sure, sure. So what do we have to do to bring this kind of money in? $1.9 million is a significant investment.
Alex Crowley:
It is.
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
What did we have to do to get that here?
Alex Crowley:
Well, we first of all really appreciate regional opportunities initiatives, they were critical in our being able to do it. Essentially what we had to do as part of all of this was to put together a compelling project, which we did, to pitch it to them, which we did, and to get their sort of feedback on it. We tightened it up, and then it was really, they took it to the state process. And so it had to go through a state approval process, which took a number of months to do, with our coordination in terms of us feeding information into the process. And ultimately, that's how we got the grant.
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
And I know there were like $500 million available through this program that this 1.9 is coming out of. Will we be applying for more money from that 500 million pot?
Alex Crowley:
Well, so this is one project. There are actually a couple of others that were already part of it that are benefiting Bloomington. The 500 million was the first tranche of funding, and the Governor announced that I believe it was last year. There is a possibility of more READI funding. Now, the 500 is not just for Monroe County, the 500 is for the entire state, and the regional opportunities initiative was able to, I believe, secure 30 million of that for projects in the 11-county region.
So we are part of that whole process, but in terms of what we might do in the future, we would certainly be looking for other opportunities to draw down some of that.
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
So it's always great to bring money into Bloomington and Monroe County from the outside, but this is really going to have a nice impact much more broadly than just Monroe County, right?
Alex Crowley:
That's correct. And we really appreciate the IEDC, the Indiana Economic Development Corporation's support of this, the Governor's Office, the Indiana Uplands, the Regional Opportunities Initiative, and I think this is just a great opportunity for all of us to not only improve what we have here in Bloomington but really to help grow wages and grow employment. So it's a win-win.
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
All right. Keep bringing in that money, Alex. We appreciate you. Thanks for all the work that you've done on this. I'm Mary Catherine Carmichael, Deputy Mayor for the City of Bloomington, joined by Alex Crowley, with our Director of Economic and Sustainable Development. Thanks for joining us.
Alex Crowley:
Thank you.