WARSAW — What does a Stellar Community finalist mean for the Warsaw Community? The community has an opportunity to develop blueprints of projects and submit those projects in the competition to become a Stellar Community. Being chosen as a finalist is a step closer to becoming a Stellar Community Designee.

As a designee the community would be given access to funds for projects by various supporting agencies without competition for the same funds. The community — the City of Warsaw and Village of Winona, have until July 1 to submit the projects. The Stellar Community committee will visit the project area from 2-5 p.m. July 21. The announcement of the two finalist — one for cities under 6,000 population and one for the city over 6,000 — will be announced during August.

“As a designee you have five years to complete projects with the availability of funds,” said Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer. “So a project can be completed in five years instead of 10 years.” He noted there is an “arsenal of access available funds in an unrestricted manner.”

Since being named a finalist, a group of city officials from Warsaw and Winona Lake have been diligently working to create blueprints of eight projects for community engagement and collaboration. “As a finalist we take the plan and organization and go from good to better, to good to exceptional … it allows us to do a project in an accelerated fashion,” said Thallemer.

The target area is the Market Street Neighborhood — from downtown Warsaw to the entrance of The Village of Winona, creating a connectivity and a regional community.

“We’re connecting two distinct areas,” said Thallemer. The connectivity has already begun with the reconstruction of a portion of a road project, partnering with The Little Crow Loft project and the continuation of the Market Street project in partnership with the Indiana Department of Transportation.

The eight projects are:

• Roundabout on Winona Avenue, a plan in the works for the past five years by Village of Winona Town Coordinator Craig Allebach
• Argonne Road improvements
• Senior Housing
• Gatke Maker Space — closely mirrored from the Columbus Idea Foundry, Columbus, Ohio, providing training and access to tools and technology available at the marker space for such areas as business, artistry and hobbies for entrepreneurs, fabricators, inventors, prototypers, designers, craftsmen, artisans and artists.
• Neighborhood beautification — Including sidewalks to allow safe travel from the east to the west and north to the south, especially to the schools, parks and shopping.
• Cycle Track
• Parks — Improvements to Richardson-Dubois Park, Kar Park and Krebs Park
• Housing — Having funds available for home rehabilitation, which has already begun in the east Market Street area.

“We know what we want,” said Thallemer, “it is a matter now of details being worked out.”

Getting Involved

Community involvement is a high priority and various projects to engage the community are being planned. A contest to develop an icon should the community be designated as a Stellar Community, meetings, events, displays of the projects and more.

City officials will also be informing the public of more details on each of the eight project areas, through its Facebook page. Postings are expected to begin this week.

“There is a ton of work to be done,” said Thallemer. “We’ve already committed to the Market Street Neighborhood, Little Crow, park improvements and road projects. This is what got us to be a finalist.”