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South Shore Ventures co-owner Nathan Scherer asked the Kosciusko County Commissioners for a letter of support for the South Shore Village development Tuesday, and the request was unanimously granted.
On behalf of himself and his business partner Jeff Dyson, he said, “We’ve been working on a project that you guys are aware of for several years, and I’ve had the opportunity to talk to a couple of you at length about the vision of the property and what we’re trying to achieve for the community.”
He asked for a letter of support, saying, “When a site selector comes to our community and they ask questions, one of the first ones is, ‘Do you have governmental support for this project or this idea?’ And what I would like to get from you guys today is a letter of support that we can show developers and say, ‘Yeah, we have that.’”
Scherer said there’s interest in the concept and the vision that’s been laid out for the property, which is the former South Shore Golf Course along Ind. 13 south of the town of Syracuse. He said the county and the town both see value in the development, as well as other local entities such as the schools and industry.
“So we’re going around, trying to get that letter of support from these types of entities so that we have that package to show developers so that they can get excited about this project and coming to the county,” he said.
With the amount of opportunities that have been created recently in the county - from Slate Auto and Autocam Medical to other businesses - Scherer said housing is needed and the South Shore project is much more than just housing.
“We’ve created a vision that looks very comprehensive and I feel like it can be very transformational for the northeast part of the county, one that can leverage the natural resources that our county has in a way that is very vital,” Scherer said.
Syracuse has a school district - Wawasee - that is in (enrollment) decline and Scherer said they’ve got to find a way to reverse that trend so that it can grow.
He talked about Wawasee’s Supermileage Challenge team that was number one in the world a couple years ago in prototype battery, and now there’s an electric vehicle plant coming to the county.
“I don’t think enough people understand that because it wasn’t publicized very well. But Wawasee High School beat universities, and the university that finished second was Duke University. They more than doubled their electrical output and finished number one in the world. So these are kids and resources that we have in our community that otherwise will leave if we don’t take advantage of the opportunities we have to keep them here,” Scherer stated.
He said he and Dyson feel like they’ve laid out a vision that shows how “transformational this can be and how impactful it can be, not only for Syracuse but for the rest of the county.”
Commissioner Bob Conley said, “We’ve followed this progress over the last 15-16 years with that whole area, and I think the highest and best use for that would be what you’re intending to do, and I applaud you for that and your tenacity.”
He made a motion to provide a letter of support.
Commissioner Cary Groninger asked Conley if he wanted Scherer to create that letter for them on what they’re looking to do and then bring that letter back in front of the commissioners to look at it. Scherer said he’d be happy to do that.
“What we’re really looking for is complete alignment from everybody. Highest and best use is what we’re going for. We don’t want to have to pivot to a plan B, C or D. I want what’s highest and best for this community, and I feel like we have all the ingredients that are required to achieve that, we just need to get the alignment, get everybody rowing in the same direction and we can do that,” Scherer said.
Conley said his motion would be for Scherer to get the commissioners a letter to look over and approve at a future meeting.
In an interview after Tuesday’s meeting, Scherer said South Shore Village will be a live, work and play community.
“So a place where people can live, walk to work and then recreate or shop or all of those kinds of things,” he said. “So, really, part of what our goal is, is to bring small start-up businesses that people can work in that are high-tech that focus on agriculture, biomedical and advanced manufacturing because, obviously, we’ve got a lot of that in the area that have needs.”
He said the customer base for those three areas is really big and that creates opportunities for local youth, technical education programs and youth entrepreneurship, which then creates a path for those people to stay in the county long term.
“That’s our goal with this type of community,” Scherer stated.
He said they’ve had several developers express interest in their vision, but when it comes to some of the challenges with the property it takes interaction from local government to get past those. If a developer doesn’t feel like local government is in support of a project, then they back away.
“So the steps that we’re making right now is to get local government to say, ‘We understand the vision, we understand the importance to the community, we’re willing to be a participant and a partner in this.’ Then that helps bring more developers to the table so we can look for that highest and best use,” he continued.
The highest and best use would involve the need for public water. The site currently doesn’t have public water, but there are ways to do it but it will take cooperation from local government to make that happen, he said.
Asking the county commissioners for a letter was the first step. Scherer said the next step will be to get in front of the county council, redevelopment commission and the town of Syracuse. Letters of support have already been provided by Polywood and the Wawasee School Corporation for any effort the town of Syracuse does to increase housing.
Scherer is on the Syracuse Town Council but said he doesn’t vote on any of this type of effort and usually removes himself from the room whenever there’s any discussion on it by the town council.
He did point out that the town operates at about a 20% water capacity, “meaning the town of Syracuse has 80% open capacity. When your rate payers are paying for 100% of the capacity, their cost is higher than it otherwise would be if they were using more of that capacity with more rate payers. So the benefit to the town in this process could be very beneficial because it could bring more rate payers to the town, therefore allowing the town to maybe not have to increase rates.”
More information on South Shore Village can be found at https://southshorevillage.com/
