Jan Orban looks over notes during the Kosciusko County Redevelopment Commission meeting on Thursday, Dec. 12. InkFreeNews photo by Liz Shepherd.

WARSAW — The Kosciusko County Redevelopment Commission heard an update from Kosciusko Economic Development Corporation CEO Alan Tio and discussed a CR 1300N project during a meeting on Thursday, Dec. 12.

During his presentation at the meeting, Tio said KEDCo’s overall goal for 2020 is building infrastructure.

“This year, we focused a lot of attention on bringing people together, helping to create community,” said Tio. “For 2020, we’re focusing a lot more on the build part, which is building our infrastructure. We’re working in a couple key areas, like the agribusiness sector, the orthopedic sector, our public recreation sector. We’re also really focusing in on entrepreneurship and quality of life.”

Tio said KEDCo is also working to make sure that the corporation is aligned with the expectations of the county’s redevelopment commission.

Bruce Woodward commented on the need for housing within Kosciusko County.

“Right now, we’re waiting for the housing study to be done because I know there’s interest out in the county on different projects that are in their initial stages right now,” said Woodward.

“We do anticipate a Zimmer Biomet award to help start programs for housing development,” said Tio. “And we anticipate having resources available that you may not see in the communities around our area to help provide catalysts. Behind that, we see a role for KEDCo to help work with all of the towns, city and county to step in and help create a structure.”

Kosciusko County Commissioner Cary Groninger was also present at the meeting to discuss an upcoming project on CR 1300N.

“We’re trying to make the commission aware of this project,” said Groninger. “During the summer, we received an award from INDOT. It would be an overpass over the north-south railroad, just north of Milford. So what this project would consist of is connecting 1300N up to SR 15 with an overpass over the railroad tracks. We haven’t seen any drawings yet and we’re still waiting on a meeting with INDOT. They have selected an engineer for this project and we should be meeting with them in the next couple of weeks to determine a schedule of what this project looks like. I’m thinking this is about an $8.6 million project to do and the county has to come up with about $1.8 million for its portion. It’s a 20-80 split. What we’re hoping to do is see whether or not some of the monies in the Van Buren fund could be used to help offset some of the costs.”

Joni Truex made a motion to have excess funds in the Van Buren fund go toward the CR 1300N project when the construction begins. The motion was approved.

The redevelopment commission also set its 2020 meeting schedule as Jan. 2, April 9, July 9 and Oct. 8.