More than 120 community members this week used their imagination for the future of Warsaw. Thursday, Friday and today until 1 p.m., the public was invited to city hall to share their ideas about Warsaw with Ball State University students from the College of Architecture and Planning. According to Scott Truex, associate professor, BSU Department of Urban Planning, the school’s Community Based Project Program started in 1969. It works with communities and small towns across Indiana to provide them with an opportunity to come together and have a dialog about important issues. “Imagine Warsaw” is an initiative of the school’s “Imagine Indiana” effort to help communities look toward the future. The three-day workshop this week lets residents take on issues they normally wouldn’t, Truex stated. “We help facilitate that dialog,” he explained. The BSU team works with a local steering committee. Truex said they have strong support from the mayor’s office, city council and various organizations in the municipality. Truex said he’s been engaged with the steering committee since January. Some of the city’s issues being examined through the process and this week’s visioning workshop are the Gatke property, the Little Crow Foods building, the fairgrounds and the YMCA relocation. Truex said a lot of good things are going on in downtown Warsaw, but they also are looking at how to maintain that momentum. The total area they’re concentrating on is from Center Lake to Winona Lake, encompassing downtown, he said, as well as looking at rail service. The program is taking a look at how to bring back Amtrak passenger rail service to Warsaw and what that would look like. Truex said the rail service is something the Warsaw Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce supports. “We find out a lot of communities look at things on a case by case basis instead of a comprehensive plan,” Truex stated. He said the visioning workshop these three days has brought in 120 to 130 people as of Friday afternoon. There’s also a website, www.imaginewarsaw.org, a Facebook page and other sites that people can post comments to. “This team is trying to take a picture of what that would mean in physical development,” he said. On July 18, the team will present its findings at 7 p.m. at Warsaw Community High School. OrthoWorx Executive Director Brad Bishop is on the steering committee. He said one of OrthoWorx’s focuses is the attractiveness of the community, and how it appeals to people the orthopedic companies are trying to bring to the area. For those already living here, he said they want it to be an exciting place for them to be. “This process helps identify ideas and concepts of things already here and how to make it more desirable,” he said.
