Stephane [00:00:05]: As people go from their starter home to something a little bit better, a little bit nicer, that opens up stock behind them. Yes, it may be a little bit older, but that makes it more affordable. So it’s how you invest in the continuum to allow people in their journey to pick the house they need.

 

Amanda [00:00:25]: That’s the voice of Stephane Frijia, President and CEO of the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership. He’s on the pod today to share with us about local strategies to create more housing. And not just more housing, but options accessible to people of all income levels as the local workforce grows. I’m Amanda Ellis and you’re listening to Inside America’s Best Cities, a podcast for Chamber, Economic Development, and Talent Attraction professionals. You can learn more about this podcast at livabilitymedia.com, and with that, let’s jump in. Stephane, thank you so much for joining us. As I mentioned, you are our Indiana debut podcast guest and we’re super excited to have you.

 

Stephane [00:01:07]: Pleasure is mine.

 

Amanda [00:01:09]: So we’re going to be talking today about some of the housing innovations going on in your region. Of course, this has become such a huge thing in economic development, I guess since the Pandemic it seems like mostly, right, a few cities in your region have been named lately to some Wall Street Journal, like emerging housing market lists. What does that mean?

 

Stephane [00:01:30]: So that particular study has been on for quite some time. It really kind of focused on kind of two kind of criteria for a community to make the list. You know, one is the real estate market, how it’s performing, and then what’s the kind of economic performance of the region. And the two conversations typically go hand in hand. Areas that the real estate market is going well, that means that people are moving in. That means that there’s job opportunities, there is rising wages. So those two kind of general criteria are fairly intertwined. So for our community to be listed in those lists now for multiple years kind of speaks to what’s happening, what’s been happening in the Fort Wayne kind of region of Northeast Indiana in terms of growth, which has been a positive story over the last five, six years or so where we see a lot of different projects coming online, mixed use, a lot of new employers coming in, and really kind of continuing to snowball effect in terms of investments. So being picked up by third parties, and it kind of validates the work that community members have been doing for quite some time. Nevertheless, though this is the number one topic for us in the region. It’s good to be recognized, speaks to a secondary composition to that discussion, which is supply/demand. So the more people talk about you, then hopefully what we want people to be curious about the region and then if all the other aspects come into play, then those individuals could become home buyers depending on what they’re pursuing. So we go back to a drawing board. Okay, so what are we doing on the supply side? Because if a supply stays low and that means our cost is going up and then you’re going to become less affordable. So it’s a funny little equation and balancing act that we have to maintain. So a lot of leadership, not just in Fort Wayne but across Eleven counties has been looking at the supply side of housing. Not just housing for executives, but all the way down to affordable homes for people perhaps just getting started in their careers.

 

Amanda [00:03:45]: Yeah. So tell us more about what’s happening to create not only more housing but more affordable housing in those areas we’ve talked about.

 

Stephane [00:03:52]: Yeah. What we’re trying to do is because we have a large variety of needs from executive homes to like I said, and affordability, is what do we apply and how do we make it easier ultimately for the market to perform better? There are several programs that even the state supports and even the federal government supports for affordable. But those are the type of housing options that oftentimes the community at large doesn’t understand well and they associate affordability with people that can really afford anything. And then they bring on online thoughts and associations of ideas about what the type of people that are actually coming to the neighborhood. So you got nimbyism that comes into place. That is not true. But people come to own conclusion. What we’re trying to figure out ultimately is we’re focusing on market rate. Our job in economic development as a community wants to grow is to kind of bring jobs that pay higher than median wage. So we’re going to hit into the market because if the market rate performs as people go from their starter home to something a little bit better, a little bit nicer, that opens up stock behind them. Yes, it may be a little bit older, but that makes it more affordable. So is how you invest in the continuum to allow people in their journey to pick the house they need and that goes all the way to senior housing. You know, as a family they had their kids, they’re ready to downsize, where do they go? If I have a home for them to move into that fits their active senior lifestyle, that means that home that was used to raise a family, that become a home for a new family to come in. But if I don’t have any senior living, then they’re stuck. And that means that house is underutilized for the full potential. Right? So you can see every stage of our life has to be met with proper housing, whether it’s rental, multifamily, condos. So how do we incentivize the developments across all these types? And that’s where things get tricky because every different type of housing model has its own financing kind of structure. Single-family home, certain type. This is not the way you finance a condo or a high rise. So how do you, again, create models that support all, that doesn’t make us unbalanced. And that’s where a lot of our local leaders and business communities spending most of our time thinking through how do we facilitate? How do we lower the cost of entry for those markets? Because as the market rate advances we know that’s not going to snowball the affordable homes for people that need it.

 

Amanda [00:06:42]: You make a great point about just having those options too and I think especially for smaller and mid-sized communities, right? They tend to be a little more limited on what some of those are. But you do want to create those opportunities for people to have that movement when they want to.

 

Stephane [00:06:55]: Yeah. Not everyone wants a 2000, 3000 sqft home on a half-acre of grass that you have to mow. It fits some people, but doesn’t mean everyone wants that.

 

Amanda [00:07:03]: Or can afford that as a starter place.

 

Stephane [00:07:06]: Exactly.

 

Amanda [00:07:08]: So I read a thought leadership article that you wrote on this topic and you talk about a couple specific housing developments in that piece in your community. One was Legacy Heights. The other was called Northview Estates, I think. How are those unique?

 

Stephane [00:07:22]: They’re similar and unique at the same time because the community play a major role in their development. Normally you expect that a developer was developing, it’s what they do, right? They’re a housing developer. They go and find a plot land and they go forward. This is where ultimately the market typically fails because there’s a lot of issues along the line that makes those development not pencil out. So Legacy Heights is in Wabash County, a lovely community that has a very rich history of technology. This is in a community where a famous company, Honeywell, was born. The Thermostat was invented there. And Wabash was also one of the first cities in the country to actually have electricity. So those are communities that have a rich history. But when it came to housing, it became over the years more and more difficult to get new housing starts going at a significant scale. And that’s when the community partnered with the regional institutions, Parkview Medical, that had surpassed land. There was a true public-partnership that came together and figured out how we can make it easier for new development to come into play. So fast forward now that is going to be opening up 52 workforce housing in Wabash that is already for the most part already spoken for because there are several large employers in the area that even recently have announced large expansions. So there is a lot of quality jobs in this community but because of the market efficiencies, let’s call it, those weren’t as obvious to come forward. Then you have the project in Topeka. Topeka, I think there was a town manager in Topeka that mentioned that during the day population of Topeka is a little over 1,000 people. During the night, sorry, but during the day it swells to 5000. It shows that there’s an imbalance between jobs and housing and residents. So again, this is another community where the community had to kind of step in and say how we structure a partnership to get some more units available to people that actually work here. They commute every day into Topeka to work at a local job. But COVID came into play, cost of materials came into play. So that creates gaps you know that ultimately makes it more difficult for a normal developer to what’s just doesn’t pencil out. I have to pencil out. That means I’m going to have to price at a point where it’s no longer market rate or it no longer matches the wages of the community. That’s where ultimately the community has to make a decision do we grow or we don’t grow? So that moves the community into a different role that other markets across the country don’t have. But I will tell you that is a very common story in most of small to medium markets across the country. Where we are proud of is that I think we have now figured out how to shepherd the local conversations within leadership. The business community is aware and all the players are willing and able to come to a table and participate on solving this problem. So our hope is that as we go through the next couple of years on developing specific projects, smaller communities will learn new tricks on how to address housing. They’ll learn how to change their zoning codes and to allow more diversity in their development. People become more accustomed to financing mechanisms that people just sometimes just read about it, but they’re not quite sure how to implement it. So it’s a large kind of learning process on how to but once you get through that how to piece, then we expect the market and developers to perform because now they’ve been shown the way. But we always going to be continuing to watch it because who knows what’s going to happen.

 

Amanda [00:11:21]: Yeah, I love the intentionality around everything you’re doing. And you’re right, like a lot of the issues in our field, it’s not like you can fix it in two days and move on, right?

 

Stephane [00:11:29]: I wish.

 

Amanda [00:11:30]: Yeah, I wish. That would make things a lot easier, wouldn’t it? So your region received $30 million earlier this year. I was reading to help with addressing some of what we’re talking about and also just general town attraction overall. Can you talk more about that and some of the planned allocation and priorities there, how that ties into what we’ve already been talking about?

 

Stephane [00:11:49]: Yeah. So I would say in Northeast Indiana, when you look at holistically across the state over the last 20 years, I have developed a reputation of thinking proactively in partnership building. So main region across the state look at Northeast as a model on how we’ve been doing things. So a few years back, the local group again of elected officials decided that they want to take one step forward in terms of how do we advance the community. And at the end of the day, it boils down to have a strategic plan and have resources. So as I freshly came into this community, I’m just about now entering into my third year, I was handed down and said, okay, you’re going to be part of this commission called the Northeast Indiana Strategic Development Commission. Okay, what is it and how we can use it best? So we went through a yearlong process of developing in a five-year strategic plan on how do we advance the community from, again, population growth. So talent attractions. Make sure that the people that are either here or coming here have the skill sets they need to meet the needs of our industry. And the third piece, of course, housing. You need rooftops for all these people that you want to keep and attract. So we developed a plan, the five-year plan. And then we went to legislature and said, would you please fund this plan? We have the right partnership, the right thoughts, and we are willing to take some risks to kind of advance the community forward. So we got fortunate to get what we asked for. And so now we’re in the process of going through the plan, having additional conversation with stakeholders across the region about, this is a five-year plan. Obviously, we have funding for two, which strategy, which tactic we want to advance that will show the legislature that we’re going to be good stewards of those dollars. We’re going to hit the ROI, and really hit the key performance metrics that we said we would. So far, we haven’t dispersed any dollars, but we focus on the process because there’s a lot of needs across three categories. So this $30 million is not going to be a silver bullet for all things we want to do. But it’s designed really, to get pilots going, validate the business models for these initiatives, get some of those the running starts they need, and make sure that they reach a sustainable point so that they don’t need always public interventions or grants for foundation to become sustainable and stable. So this is really what those dollars will do. But also, the state is taking a similar tactic. Governor Holcomb a couple of years ago announced the first ready program that was $500 million. It was ARPA dollars, federal dollars that he turned around and gave it to the regions and to communities like, what would you do with these dollars? Our region was allocated 50 million, and out of that 50, we developed matches. And so we have $530,000,000 of projects that are in progress right now. So we see already, foundations, specific allocations, all those projects, they’re all kind of nipping at the same issues from different angles. So our role in economic development is to make sure we optimize those funding opportunities, those ideas to sweep through the good ones and the ones that need some refinement, give them some advice. Most of the ideas that we’ve seen so far, they’re not bad. They just need a little more refinement and they’ll get there. So I’m very happy about the level of investments, level of commitment that leaders, both state and local, have towards a lot of these issues, because that’s what really takes. Development is a team sport. Always say that if the team is not with you, you’re not going to score. You’re basically just going to sit down, cry in the middle of the field because you can’t do it. You can’t move forward without having everyone be willing to chip in.

 

Amanda [00:15:57]: Yeah. So getting a little more granular for a moment. Another thing I read about in prepping for this is an app like a local app called Club 720 that has to do with housing and connecting people with affordable opportunities. Tell us about that.

 

Stephane [00:16:12]: It goes back to information sharing. Right. That app is really designed for first-time home buyers, and buying a home is a very daunting task. Yes, it’s American Dream, but it is American dream that if you don’t know how to do it right, it becomes a nightmare very quickly. So there are several programs that local and state have put together to help homebuyers, especially first-time home buyers, on how you qualify, how you search for a mortgage. That Club 720 app is really about, at its core, it’s an information-sharing platform about who is there to help you. And here is that common mistake you need to avoid, what to look for. So when you empower people with resources and the education, then people can make decisions the best for them at a much faster pace. And again, economic development is all about momentum.

 

Amanda [00:17:05]: Yes. Any other regional initiatives you’d like to share a bit about? I know we’ve stayed pretty focused on some specific areas, but anything else?

 

Stephane [00:17:16]: I would say number one, our region, Northeast Indiana, is a very manufacturing heavy region. We make a lot of things for a lot of people in those nondescript buildings that peppered throughout the countryside. So when I came into the region and I noticed 80% dependent on manufacturing, it’s a great things, but at the same time, how we diversify our economy is always top of mind. So we kind of focus on about how the industry are evolving, how we stimulate entrepreneurship. And as well, how do we look at other kind of clusters that perhaps don’t exist here, ow we bring here. Whether it’s Creative Arts, we have some very powerful program in local university within our region that all those kids graduate and they fly out to the coast to be creative and be hired by Marvel and Hollywood Studios and whatnot. What if we actually retain those kids here? What would that do to our economy? So we’re working on projects along that lines, we’re also looking at entrepreneurship. This region has a long history of inventing and building companies to scale but again over the last 20 years and it has lost a little bit of his ways. So how do we polish up that know-how and that history and build new platforms? So rather than getting our brightest to, only choice you have is to go to Silicon Valley. You can stay here and bring in the architecture for getting this company to scale up. It’s really what we’re focusing on. So you know, our portfolio projects goes from housing to education. Make sure that our universities are training for what the industry needs but also thinking about the new clusters. How federal policy affects where industry is going to go, opportunities from overseas that may come, you know, how do we place them the best way? So hard tech in clusters, in manufacturing, entrepreneurship all those are daily topics from meeting to meeting that we got projects and we have supporting both local and from outside the state to see those solution move forward. Because if we do then everyone wins. Local people but also investors from outside.

 

Amanda [00:19:32]: Well, it sounds like your team is definitely staying busy.

 

Stephane [00:19:34]: Yeah, we are.

 

Amanda [00:19:35]: So we always wrap up with a fun question. If someone were to visit your region for the first time, what is one bucket list item that they should be sure to do?

 

Stephane [00:19:46]: Oh gosh, there’s probably a bucket list I haven’t yet done I’ve got to admit. There’s one of the things when the summertime comes around I always say I’m going to do and then just this is the year I’m going to do. But there’s a lot of waterways. I think the city of Fort Wayne and one other’s city name is Summit City because you got three rivers, converging. It’s the headwaters of the Mississippi. So one thing that I always had this idea is about canoeing down some of those rivers, go through the waterways and can kind of explore that, as well as there’s a lot of lakes in northeast one of our counties, Steuben counties, over 100 lakes and it’s really to do a tour of lake by lake. So I like water for whatever reason even though I came from a desert.

 

Amanda [00:20:36]: It’s probably why you like it.

 

Stephane [00:20:37]: Yeah, I haven’t seen that much. I want to see more. So there’s a lot of kind of water sports activities happening here that the locals really enjoy and some of my younger teams, like you know, well, do this, but not then, because it gets rowdy. So timing with family and kids, I got to plan it correctly. But there’s a lot of fun that happens on those waterways. So I think taking advantage of that, that should definitely be on the back of list.

 

Amanda [00:21:01]: Very cool. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Clearly there’s so much positive momentum in your region and I really appreciate you taking a few minutes to share some of what’s happening.

 

Stephane [00:21:11]: Well, thank you for the opportunity. Amanda.

 

Amanda [00:21:17]: Thanks for listening to the Livability podcast, where we take you inside America’s best cities. At Livability, we highlight the unsung awesomeness of small and mid-sized cities across the country. We also partner with communities to reach their target companies and potential residents through digital content and print magazine programs. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, rate, and review this show wherever listen to podcasts. You can also learn more about us at livabilitymedia.com. Have an idea for an upcoming episode? Email me at [email protected]. Until next time, from Livability, I’m Amanda Ellis, sharing the stories of America’s most promising places.