Richmond: new companies, telecommunications infrastructure.

• Author: Holden, Richard

CURRENTLY, THE dominating economic event in Richmond is Reid Hospital & Health Care Services' construction of a $233 million health treatment complex.

As many as 450 workers will be constructing the new Reid complex on a 100-acre site about a mile north of the existing hospital.

Reid, a regional hospital serving five counties in Indiana and two in Ohio, employs some 1,180, making it Richmond's top job maker.

Not far from the new Reid site, Ivy Tech State College is finishing a $17.8 million classroom and laboratory building and soon starts a $8.8 million expansion and renovation of its Richmond campus. Ivy Tech is experiencing record enrollment this spring with 1,722 students, 10.3 percent more than the previous year. And close by, Indiana University East is also enrolling more students than ever, around 2,400.

Elsewhere, the Richmond area has welcomed several new companies into its extensive industrial family, including Autocar, manufacturer of truck chassis; Howa, a Japanese maker of automotive trim parts; and Osborn International, maker of industrial brushes.

Don Holbrook, president and CEO of the Economic Development Corp. of Wayne County cites the city's exceptional telecommunications infrastructure created by the city-owned electric utility, Richmond Power & Light.

Over the past three years, RP&L has cast more than 80 miles of fiber-optic lines throughout the city and beyond. The system, known as Parallax, provides businesses...