Top business news: Eastern Indiana update.

AuthorPrice, Larry
PositionRegional Report East

New signs of economic stability and small signs of a slow turnaround have officials in eight eastern counties--Delaware, Madison, Wayne, Grant, Blackford, Jay, Randolph and Henry--more chipper than many have been in years.

"We've been struggling for the last few years," says Carol Pugh, executive director of the Blackford County Economic Development Corp. "But things are starting to improve now."

Her county, one of Indiana's smallest with a population of 14,000, is smiling over the sale of a building the economic-development corporation built in 1989 as a way to attract a new industry.

The move paid off in '93. In June, Key Plastics bought the 50,000-square-foot building in Hartford City and is in production with 124 employees, all new jobs, Pugh says. The company assembles and paints door handles for the automotive industry.

Other industry expanded, including the Overhead Door Corp. in Hartford City, adding about 70 jobs.

Big news wasn't limited to the small counties. General Motors Corp. and Transportation Systems Inc. announced a preliminary agreement to enter into a joint venture to purchase businesses that currently are part of GM's Delco Remy Division, which makes starting motors and generators.

"That's a significant thing," says George Allison, president of the Anderson Area Chamber of Commerce in Madison County.

Other exciting news was the approval of licensing for a harness-race track. "That's good news for the economy. It will bring a lot of people here. It makes Anderson a destination."

The county also saw its first tenant--insurance administrator First Benefit--in a new 60-acre industrial park on Interstate 69. Allison says the county will push for growth in the park, which has an option on 200 more acres and will become a "SmartPark" under agreement with GTE. That means installation of the latest in fiber-optics technology.

Some in the Richmond-Wayne County area, long plagued by some of the worst unemployment rates in the state, are calling 1993 a turning point. Wayne County adopted an economic-development income tax and established a countywide economic-development corporation.

The plastics industry continues to expand in an area once linked more heavily to the auto. And 1993 was the first year in recent history in which the county didn't lose a major employer, as had happened in the last few years with plant shutdowns.

Richmond also took an economic-development gamble unlike any in its recent history. A major employer--bus...

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