Warsaw City Council held a second strategic plan meeting to provide vision and goals for the city Tuesday night.
The council previously met Feb. 6 to discuss strengths and weaknesses of the city for the strategic plan.
The city met with American Structurepoint, an engineering, architecture and planning firm based in Indianapolis, to go over developing a strategic plan for Warsaw Tuesday.
The city council identified goals they wanted to work on for the city.
The goals included well-planned managed growth, retaining and expanding existing businesses, workforce development, obtaining shovel ready dirt, downtown and neighborhood revitalization, appealing signage entering and exiting the city, and marketing the city more effectively.
American Structurepoint will put together a draft of goals, strategies, and objectives for the strategic plan.
During a city council meeting in March or April, the public will have an opportunity to provide input on the strategic plan.
Chris Hamm, American Structurepoint, shared results with the council from interviews conducted by stakeholders who were identified by the city council.
The stakeholders were Keith Reinholt, Bruce Shaffner, Wes Stouder, Dr. Dane Miller, Suzie Light, Jean Ann Dennie, Brad Bishop, and John Rice.
American Structurepoint officials interviewed the stakeholders to see how their opinions on strengths and weaknesses of the city compared to council’s ideas.
They also were interviewed on their thoughts on opportunities for and threats to the city.
Some of the strengths identified were “orthopedics capital of the world” and K-12 schools.
Weaknesses identified were students going to Fort Wayne for private schools, infrastructure not on par with growth, marketing the city, and lack of shovel ready dirt.
Opportunities stakeholders discussed included economic diversity, expansion opportunities for industrial base, further developing OrthoWorx and establishing an orthopedic hospital.
Threats were the potential loss of the orthopedic industry, vacant buildings, and people benefiting from city services who don’t live in the city.
The stakeholders also identified looming issues in the city including downtown buildings needing attention, being careful not to take the economic power of orthopedics for granted, lack of recruiting and retaining young people, and upper level executives from the orthopedics industry not living in Warsaw.
Some missed opportunities the stakeholders identified were Warsaw not capitalizing on second-story apartments downtown, generating a business incubator, getting shovel ready sites, and developing Ivy Tech.
Issues identified as preventing Warsaw from moving forward are lack of parking downtown and construction issues, and disconnect between public and government.
