Indiana Lt. Governor Suzanne Crouch joined local economic development and other officials on Monday, July 31, 2017, to officially declare the
Brickley Industrial Site 1 at I-69 Exit 278 in Huntington County as having earned the State's PRIME Site Certification designation. The 80 plus acre site is the only site in Northeast Indiana having earned the State's highest development readiness designation.
The Indiana Site Certified Program is administered by the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs
(OCRA) under the supervision of the Lt. Governor and OCRA executive director
Jodi Golden, both of whom attended the celebration. The Indiana Site Certified PRIME designation requires extensive site due diligence and goes beyond routine readiness designations by additionally requiring either ownership of the site by a local unit of government or local economic development organization or regional economic development organizations by an option agreement with the site owner. Additional due diligence includes an ALTA Survey, Archaeological Studies, Environmental Phase I Report, Geo-technical Studies, Wetlands Research and more.
Lt. Governor Crouch confirmed this is the only site in Northeast Indiana to have achieved this level of readiness. Jodi Golden, OCRA executive director acknowledged, "We recognize that a lot of time, energy, and collaboration goes into earning the Indiana Site Certified designation, especially PRIME. I commend the Huntington County Economic Development Corporation and their local partners for working together to make the Brickley property ready for development."
Huntington County Commissioner Tom Wall and Warren businessman Jeff Souder, both members of the Board of Directors for the Huntington County Economic Development Corporation, commended the State and local economic development team for the effort. Mark Wickersham, executive director of Huntington County Economic Development Corporation, expressed his appreciation to the various development partners assisting with the due diligence research, including
Alt& Witzig Engineering,
Citizens Telephone of Warren,
Heartland REMC, and
Vectren Energy.
"Earning the PRIME Certification is not a guarantee a company will build here but it will hyper-accelerate their interest in the site and no development will take place without the research we've already completed. The State's program and our work will combine to save employer prospects months of work and tens of thousands of dollars," he concluded.