Northwest Indiana update.

• Author: Richards, Rick
• Position: Regional Report: Northwest

A year or so ago in Northwest Indiana, civic leaders hailed even the tiniest gains by small businesses and entrepreneurs. They found a silver lining wherever they could.

But the small gains of 1993 were a prelude to much bigger success stories in Northwest Indiana in 1994. In the seven-county region, hundreds of permanent jobs and thousands of seasonal construction jobs were created, and more growth is on the horizon.

New businesses and expansions ranged from such retailers as Shoe Carnival and Wal-Mart to trucking and fabricating companies to $435 million worth of construction at Bethlehem Steel's Burns Harbor plant in Porter County.

Looming over everything in 1994 was the anticipation of riverboat casinos. The Indiana Supreme Court in the late fall upheld the constitutionality of the state's gaming law, and the state last month granted the first two casino licenses to firms that will launch ships in Gary. The first gaming boats could be sailing this spring.

Mark McLaughlin, economic-development director for the Northwest Indiana Forum, a private economic-development group based in Portage, says a strong national economy was behind the surge in business growth in 1994.

James Staton, president of the Jasper County Industrial Foundation, agrees. "A lot of it is the economy as a whole. Indiana has worked itself out of the Rust Belt situation it was in. Older companies are retooling and newer companies are adding more high-tech equipment. And we're a cheap place to do business."

LAKE COUNTY

The long wait for good casino news ended last December, when the Indiana Gaming Commission awarded the first two licenses for riverboat casinos on Lake Michigan. As expected, development will take place first in Gary.

The first winners of the high-stakes casino-license lottery were Trump Hotels & Casinos Resorts Inc. and Barden/PRC-Gary. Donald Trump has been one of the highest-profile bidders for an Indiana riverboat casino license, while cable-TV entrepreneur Donald Barden claims he's setting up the nation's first casino operation controlled by an African American. A partner in the Barden venture is St. Louis-based President Riverboat Casinos Inc. (the "PRC" in the venture's name).

It will be the first riverboat casino for Trump, the celebrity developer who owns three land-based casinos. He believes his name may have been the clincher that helped his bid win over competing proposals. The gaming commission "felt the name is somewhat magical," he says. "It...