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On behalf of Grace College, the Kosciusko County Council Thursday agreed to apply and accept a loan from the Indiana Development Finance Authority.
The money will be used for a parking lot to be created on the landfill at the former Gatke property site on Wooster Road. The site is where lead and asbestos had been dumped over the years.
According to attorney Mike Miner, representing Grace and who also is the county's attorney, Grace has been working with the local orthopedics companies on turning the landfill site into the parking lot and an adjacent property into an event center. They have worked with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management for approval of the parking lot so it no longer will be a dump site. To make the financing of the project feasible, the approximate $1 million loan will be paid off on a 20-year bond at an interest rate of approximately 3 percent. Because of the type of loan it is, Miner said, Grace can receive it only if it comes through the county.
Grace is going to hold the county "harmless," Miner said, and Grace is assuming the liability of the project. Only if Grace College goes bankrupt and the letter of credit goes bad would the county be held responsible for payment of the loan, but Miner said that is not likely to happen. The Kosciusko County Commissioners already approved the loan application.
Kosciusko County became owners of the Gatke property by tax default. The Gatke property is a dump site and nothing can be built on it. The highest and best use for the property is a parking lot, said Tom Dunn, Grace College. The best way to remediate the property, he said, is to encapsulate it. Next door to it will be the 53,000-square-foot event center built for Grace and the orthopedic companies but open to the public. The total cost of the project is $8 million, including the $7 million building and the $1 million three- to four-acre parking lot.
"It's a very expensive parking lot," said Dunn.
Grace College, said councilman John Kinsey, has had a good track record in the community. He made a motion to approve the loan application and acceptance. The council approved it by a vote of 6 to 1. Tom Anglin opposed, saying the only reason he opposed it was because, even with Grace's good track record, if something should happen, the county would then be responsible for the loan.
Members of the Kosciusko County Council are Kinsey, Anglin, Brad Tandy, Harold Jones, Charlene Knispel, Larry Teghtmeyer and Bob Sanders. They meet at 7 p.m. in the county courthouse, Warsaw, on the second Thursday of every month.
