Life Unscripted with Kevin Shook
Welcome to 'Life Unscripted with Kevin Shook', a heartening podcast where embracing vulnerability is the key to success. Join your host, Kevin, as he dives into the stories of remarkable individuals who have transformed their lives by opening up, facing challenges, and finding strength in their most vulnerable moments. Each episode features inspiring conversations with guests from various walks of life. Kevin's journey of embracing vulnerability has led him to meet amazing people, and now he brings their wisdom, laughter, and insights to you. Tune in and discover how embracing your vulnerabilities can lead to your greatest victories in life, both personally & professionally.
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Life Unscripted with Kevin Shook
Life Unscripted - Dakota Collins on Revitalizing Richmond: Community, Commerce, and the Road Ahead
Can an ambitious initiative redefine the heart of Richmond? Join us on "Life Unscripted with Kevin Shook," as Dakota Collins, Director of Community Relations at Earlham College, shares the intricate details of the groundbreaking "Revitalize Richmond" project. This initiative aims to breathe new life into downtown Richmond and strengthen the ties between the college and the community. Dakota walks us through the project's comprehensive planning process and its three main pillars: build, activate, and connect, underscoring the essential role of the Whitewater Gorge Activation Plan.
Discover how the revitalization effort is attracting successful local businesses from nearby cities like Bloomington, Muncie, and Oxford, creating a dynamic mix of eateries, e-commerce, and office spaces. We discuss the recruitment strategy, which involves hiring a specialized firm to identify and lure independently owned businesses with a proven track record. Hear about the ongoing infrastructure projects, such as the bike loop, and the necessity for community support during construction to ensure the long-term success of the downtown area.
In the final chapter, we explore the balanced approach to residential and commercial development, spearheaded by Richmond Neighborhood Restoration. Dakota shares exciting updates on transforming older buildings into modern apartments and retail spaces, and larger projects like the Sixth and Main development. With housing studies confirming the demand for new living spaces, we envision a vibrant future for downtown Richmond. Your patience and community support are key to this transformation, and we eagerly anticipate the remarkable changes the next five years will bring. Stay tuned for more updates on this inspiring journey.
Life Unscripted with Kevin Shipp.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Life Unscripted. This is Dakota Collins. He is at Earlham College and what is your position out there?
Speaker 1:So I'm the Director of Community Relations, and what does that entail? It entails a whole bunch of stuff. It includes overseeing Revitalize Richmond our recent funding opportunity that we received from the Lilly Endowment to help revitalize downtown Richmond. But it also includes things like reconnecting the Richmond and Earlham communities, getting our students involved in different things going on downtown, bringing the community back on campus to really strengthen that connection again.
Speaker 2:Sweet and doing podcasts, and doing podcasts, and doing podcasts.
Speaker 1:Early in the morning.
Speaker 2:No thanks for coming up here, and one of my big things having you up here is just to get some updates, if there are updates, because I'm kind of like middle of everything. I have a lot of different friends from all walks of life. They all have different perspectives, different opinions from all walks of life. They all have different perspectives, different opinions. They see construction, they're mad, yeah you know. So it's kind of like I told him I'm like, well, I'll get one guy up there that knows what's going on and can kind of just share some of the details and some of the progress you know we've had. This is life unscripted, sure. So I've obviously had all types of different guests, from the lieutenant governor to a red-tailed hawk from the Animal Care Alliance. That's really cool.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I can live up to either of those.
Speaker 2:It was just neat and it was an honor that all of these people come in and talk. So give us kind of an update, tell us what Revitalize Richmond is, and then obviously the two words go really well together and it builds excitement.
Speaker 1:I hope so, because it is really exciting. So let's see, it was March-ish of last year 2023, that the Lilly Endowment released this funding opportunity, and it was just for four year colleges and universities across Indiana and they said we want you to work with your local community to find projects that would be of the benefit for both the college and the community around it, and we will pitch in $25 million a ton of money. The catch was that if you wanted to apply for $25 million, you had to come up with the other 70% of those project funds somewhere else. So, fast forward on that math, that's about $56 million that you had to come up with to apply for $25 million. So we were really interested.
Speaker 1:Earlham has been a part of the Richmond community for 176 years a really long time but sometimes that relationship has felt strained or we felt distant, or sometimes the college has just kept to itself over on campus. But the college now wants to take a more community oriented approach and be really involved with the community, and this was a first big swing at bat for us. This was something that only we could do to help out the the community, and this was a first big swing at bat for us. This was something that only we could do to help out the Richmond community, and so we went for it. We jumped in with both feet. We brought in a whole bunch of people to figure out what we should be doing, and when I say a whole bunch of people, a whole bunch of people from the community, community leaders, people that had been working on Richmond and downtown revitalization for a really long time. And so we did settle on that downtown revitalization because of how important it is for the success of the broader community.
Speaker 1:We really see if we can have a real positive effect. If we can create a strong downtown, it will have ripple effects throughout the rest of the community. And it's also a great benefit for the college because so often our students will come in or potential students will come in. They'll look around Richmond and say I don't really want to live here for four years. Or if they do come to Earlham, they don't want to then live in Richmond after they graduate. And I think that would benefit both the Richmond and the Earlham communities. To have more students coming in and to have more of them living here after graduation increase population, increase the workforce. There's a lot of people buying houses. There are a lot of really great benefits for the community, so that's really why we settled on focusing on downtown.
Speaker 2:That's exciting, that's real exciting. So I read through the website this morning while I was on the treadmill and kind of got the gist of things. Three pillars to this, correct Major pillars.
Speaker 1:Tell me about that. So we're focusing on build, activate, build and connect, and they all have their own different components and there are a lot of projects that exist within each of those. But what a lot of people when they hear about $25 million coming to town, or really over 100 million coming to town, they think how can I be a part of this? And I'm so excited that people are thrilled about this and want to be a part of it. But in grants like this, you submit a full budget so you tell the funder exactly how you're going to spend it before they give you a dime, and so we submitted a really detailed budget built out on those three pillars, so all of the projects within those are fully or at least partially funded.
Speaker 2:That's exciting, so activate, activate.
Speaker 1:Tell me Activate.
Speaker 2:That's the really fun one You've told me about this off the show a couple times, and that's where it starts.
Speaker 1:It is where it starts. So one of the things we all know we want an active and vibrant downtown. We want to see people on the streets doing things, and there are a lot of little pieces to that. There are quality of life pieces, there are business pieces and they've all got to come together to build out a truly strong and vibrant downtown.
Speaker 1:So the first and one of the most exciting things is that we're helping to fund part of the Whitewater Gorge Activation Plan.
Speaker 1:Now this is really being done by the Richmond Parks and Recreation Department. They've worked with the whole community, they've worked with some consultants to develop this plan to activate the Whitewater Gorge and it includes everything you can imagine, from simple parking and accessibility features to being able to kayak and canoe down the water, to zip lining, to potentially an amphitheater and a boulder park and a new playground down in the gorge and just all sorts of stuff, and so with the completion of this plan, it will really transform the gorge into a true destination. People are going to come not only to Richmond, but from Richmond like citizens are going to have so much fun down here. Revitalize Richmond is funding a portion of that, really focusing in on improving the waterway so that people can kayak and canoe, and partnering with a third party to do zip lining, and so I think this is just so exciting that'd be cool, because a lot of people take their kayaks and leave Richmond.
Speaker 2:they do, and then they go get in the river down in Brookville, down in Brookville or Connor in Ohio. Yeah, yeah, so we'll be one of those destinations so people from around here will be able to come and then they go get in the river down in Brookville, down in Brookville or Conner in Ohio and stuff, yeah.
Speaker 1:So we'll be one of those destinations, so people from around here will be able to come to Richmond. Instead, we will be able to just hop right here on the river and take a ride. It's going to be fantastic. Plus, the zip lining is going to be so much fun. Yeah, it's just going to be awesome. And then there are other funding opportunities out there right now that others are pursuing to potentially fund additional pieces of that gorge activation plan. When you look at the plan in total, it's probably a 15 or 20 million dollar plan. That was going to be spread over years and years because it takes a while to get that funding. But between Revitalize Richmond and all the work that the Parks and Recreation Department are doing and people like the Wayne County Foundation, this community is really focusing on getting that done for the benefit of everybody so, like, a lot of people talk about how this almost sounds too good to be true and I'm like but this is the first time we've seen this much money coming to our community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's going to happen I get that people are skeptical right that sometimes things like this seem too good to be true, but that's what this community needs. But the commitment's there, the commitment's there. We've got 25 million dollars in the bank right now to be spent on downtown within the next five years.
Speaker 2:It's happening yeah, and that's not even counting all the community partners and the matching and all the stuff.
Speaker 1:That's not even counting all the community partners and the matching and all the stuff that's going on outside of Revitalize Richmond. I mean the foundation keeps applying for funds to bring in money to help do projects that aren't covered in Revitalize Richmond, or take those projects and take them even further. There's so much happening. We've got so many incredible, dedicated people. This is Richmond's time, and I'm perfectly comfortable with people being skeptical of it If I wasn't in the center of it, I would probably be too, but this is our opportunity, and so just hold on, stay informed and keep being hopeful.
Speaker 2:So is there a timeline on the first pillar, on activate?
Speaker 1:So each, each pillar and each project sort of operates on its own timeline and so there are timelines for each thing, but really overall we're talking about a five-year timeline ending in 2028. So we started this past january. We have to get everything done by the end of 2028. And, by the way, theorge Activation Plan is only one part of Activate. There is even more that goes into that. So we know that downtown, in order to be successful, has to have cool, vibrant, exciting businesses downtown, and we already have several.
Speaker 1:There are really incredible business owners doing remarkable things through a lot of adversity, and I have so much respect for them. But in order to help them be successful, one of the things we need to do is bring in more. So we want to do that in two ways. One is through empowering more local budding entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1:If somebody's got a business idea, we need to be able to connect them with all the resources, give them all the help and assistance they need in order to be successful. So we're going to hire a full-time business coach, somebody that's out in the community, going to the farmer's market, going to networking events, talking to different people and saying maybe it's time for you to open up a storefront or have you ever considered opening up a business? And then if they need help developing their business plan or putting together a pitch to apply for funding, or if they need marketing help, this person can help connect them with different resources or find them a mentor that's already doing something similar in the community. If somebody is looking to open up a restaurant and they're a really great chef but have no idea how to actually run a business.
Speaker 1:Let's connect them with somebody like Kathy Hillard, who runs downtown deli and smileys, to really help them figure out the reality of what that's going to take and help them be successful. But, as we all know, budding entrepreneurs present a little bit of a risk. A lot of businesses fail within the first three years. So we want something that also has a little bit more stability. It's a little bit sure bet. So we're going to be hiring an outside firm. They're going to look regionally at local, independently owned businesses in other cities in Bloomington and Muncie and Oxford, anywhere around and they're going to go to those people that have demonstrated success and say maybe it's time for you to consider opening up a second or third location in a brand new market in a brand new market. Let's look at downtown Richmond together to see if that will fit your needs and really recruit some of those existing businesses with a good business model, with a track record of success, to come in and open up a second business here.
Speaker 2:Well now when you say locally owned, are you? Is that kind of like non-franchise?
Speaker 1:So we'll keep it relatively flexible for the company to look at these places. But really what I want are more. I won't go so far as to say mom and pop shops, but we're not necessarily looking for a big corporation. It's not easy but the path is clear. To try to get a national chain to come in and it is presented with its own complications and there's a lot of work that goes into that.
Speaker 2:But what we want to see downtown full of are more independently owned businesses well, like on any main street in any city, um you don't, you might have some franchise right like insomnia cookies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which would be amazing that's why I don't want to count it out, because it's possible, right, like if the fit's there, we're never going to say no to something that fits the vibe, that fits the desire, that fits the need that our community has. But that might not necessarily be the primary focus, right.
Speaker 2:And a lot of those shops in like downtown man you can go like Rushville is a close that I always talk highly of um because they have blossomed throughout the past eight years, probably with their downtown um greensburg they've been doing well. Green castle as well, yeah, um, and a lot of those are non-franchise because they're smaller, boutique style might do e-commerce as well, so that's like super exciting.
Speaker 1:And so that's sort of what that company will also help us determine what's the appropriate market mix for a downtown like Richmond. How many restaurants do we need and what kind of restaurants? How many e-commerce business? How many office businesses? What is the appropriate market mix for our area? And then, working with that business coach, the business coach will secure some, the retail recruitment piece will secure some others, so we can really start building that from the beginning.
Speaker 2:So is there a time frame on that?
Speaker 1:That's a lot.
Speaker 2:It's a lot I feel like that's a lot of research.
Speaker 1:I am trying to get all of that started very soon. The path to this moment has been a little challenging, more than we anticipated. There was a lot of stuff to do on the back end that we knew was coming, but we didn't really know quite how challenging it was going to be. So anything from setting up the chart of accounts on the back end to figuring out our processes, to getting agreements with all of the partners that we're going to be funding, to hiring people, I was in a different position at the college and was supposed to take on community relations starting in January, but because of different things, we had a big event, we had to find my successor, I didn't get to transition until May, and so a lot of these things have just changed our timeline a little bit. So the best answer that I can give to that question is ASAP. Asap. To be determined when you see it yeah, I'll let you know when it's happening. To be determined when you see it, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll let you know when it's happening. Well, I've talked to some developers and that's talked about some of the projects that they're going to be working on some of it including some of this grant, and it's really fucking exciting yeah it is. It's awesome and you know, like the building we're in right now, it's not going to see this wave. And it needs to, but it's not its time right now.
Speaker 1:It's a really cool building, I know, and.
Speaker 2:I would have to try to recreate this same exact room elsewhere, but we'll talk about a new location another day. But, um, so that's what I like to um convey. Um, the message today is like there's like some really cool things it's about to happen down down here.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And um seeing the phase two the bike loop almost done. Um, you know, people were kind of discouraged because, like last year, I saw a lot of hiccups with construction and being torn up and stuff. But I tell them just like, hold on, because I don't think they realize what's about to happen.
Speaker 1:I think so too, yeah. And construction, no matter where, no matter when, when, it's always a drag, it's always terrible.
Speaker 1:It's always a challenge for business owners, and so we, as revitalize richmond, we as the city, should be doing everything we can to make that as least, as least challenging as possible. But it's always going to be a challenge, it's gonna be there. But what we need to do as a community is embrace the fact that these business owners need our support, even during construction. Even though you might have to walk one extra block instead of just the half block to get to where you're going, still go, still go park in the parking garage. It's perfectly safe, there's a great place, no matter where you're going to find a spot and go patronize these businesses, because they really need our support.
Speaker 1:So if you care about downtown, if you care about downtown businesses and you want to be involved, no matter what the circumstances are downtown with construction, make sure you're going to your favorite places. Go to the deli, go to Suzy's, go to Ply Creatives. You need to continue to patronize these businesses. And so that's what I tell each and every person when they say how can I be involved? How can I help? Just go downtown. Go downtown and shop and patronize places.
Speaker 2:I love it you mentioned the parking garage, because we'll go to Indianapolis and walk blocks and not even think about it. Not even here, do you? You know, social media being social media. You hear, you see parking complaints and it's like they just put new lights oh yeah cameras like this parking garage is amazing and you don't have to pay. You don't have to pay for any parking downtown, which is just unheard of anymore.
Speaker 1:Even cities, our size like I'll go anywhere to a similar size city and you've got to pay for parking, especially on the street or in a garage. And, and you look at, a lot of people think the parking garage is unsafe. You know it can be a little dingy, sometimes it's a little dirty. It's a parking garage, for goodness sake. But you look at the police data and no calls get made from the parking garage. There are no crimes happening in the parking garage.
Speaker 2:Kids skateboarding and. I'm usually one of them on a one wheel sometimes I'm usually right in the middle of my one wheel at 39 years old it's fun be careful. It's fun I know I fell quite a few times, but uh, and it's a, a lot of photographers use it for yeah, it's a beautiful place a great spot on top for photography, so kind of backing up to the pillars.
Speaker 2:Is there a percentage? Um, like we know some of this will be on housing, on apartments? Yeah, is there like a certain percentage versus business, uh, with the ratio of, like our commercial space, or is that kind of left up to um? Whoever the developers, you're talking about percentage of square footage, apartments, or residential versus commercial, versus the activate stuff.
Speaker 1:Insofar as square footage or funding Funding, there is a percentage. I don't have it on hand, but it's not as though we said we want to give such and such percent to activate and such and such a percentage to build. It just worked out that there was a percentage.
Speaker 1:Because the build pieces are so much more expensive. So they take up a lot more budget and no matter where, no matter how you're going to do it, it's just going to take up more budget. So in build we're looking at two major initiatives. One is partnering with Richmond Neighborhood Restoration. They've done several single family houses around town. They just finished the Hill House on US 40 and 23rd Street. It's incredible. They also just recently did the Secret Ingredient Building just across the street here and they put four brand new apartments upstairs. And that's what we want them to do on several more buildings throughout downtown three to five over five years. And that's what we want them to do on several more buildings throughout downtown Three to five over five years. Take that same model put in nice apartments on the upper stories and then white box, the first floor, so that it's ready for those brand new entrepreneurs to just move in. They don't have to bring a building up to code, they don't have to put in new flooring, they just have to paint the walls and move in whatever they need in there, and so that's going to be a big piece of that. So we're going to see a lot of these older buildings rejuvenize because of the work that Richmond Neighborhood Restoration is going to do.
Speaker 1:The other big piece of this is focusing in on some larger scale buildings that are iconic in downtown. Now those buildings haven't necessarily been decided yet, but we're looking at places that will have a big impact and can house a lot of people and working with private developers to turn those into apartment complexes. Now the first floor will still probably be retail space. I don't know what's going to be in there. The developers will probably work with the people that are working and activate the business coach and the consultant to figure out who they can bring in there.
Speaker 1:But all in all, between both of those projects, we're looking to bring in just under 300 apartments to downtown Richmond and everybody says, well, who's going to live there? And we've done two different housing studies that have told us the demand exists at the price point we're looking at and that price point across all the projects will be relatively broad. But what a lot of people don't know is that 42% of the people that work in Wayne County don't live here. They commute in from anywhere else, sometimes close, you know, sometimes like from Connersville or Newcastle, but sometimes from all the way from Dayton or Indianapolis, and so they're living in much more expensive markets right now. They have the resources to be able to move closer if they had the housing, and that's what each housing study has told us. So I'm really excited about the housing coming to downtown Richmond.
Speaker 2:Are you able to share what some of those price points might be on some of these?
Speaker 1:So they haven't all been determined because we're still in the beginning phases of some of them. The Elder Beerman project called Sixth and Main now is sort of a part of Revitalize Richmond in that we're not necessarily contributing funding but it goes to that cost share that we needed on the other side, and so that price point could be from $1,100 to $1,700 a month. But those are really high-end apartments. They've got a lot of amenities that come with them. They're what people that are living in Indianapolis and Dayton are already getting, and so and there are people paying for places that expensive in town right now. Now on the other side we might see a little bit different pricing, maybe a little bit lower. So it all just depends on the square footage and the amenities provided in the space.
Speaker 2:Cool. So does any of the funding that you're involved with go to the sixth and main project? Have they secured any lily?
Speaker 1:No, so that project is already completely funded. We are only counting the money that is spent on that project on the cost share. So I mentioned that in order to apply for that $25 million, you had to find $56 million in other funds. Well, we were very lucky, because this community is incredible, and we found $83 million instead. But part of that, elder Beerman, that sixth and main project, counts towards that $83 million total.
Speaker 2:Downtown is going to look and feel so, so different in five years. I just think that whole fresh breath of optimism and opportunity down here, yeah, and that's why I like sitting up here, because like we're right in the middle of it and so we can talk about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think these discussions are important, yeah, moving forward and well, the more we can tell the community about the things that are going on and get them excited too. I think that's incredibly important because we want community buy-in for the projects that we're doing. We want it to benefit community members. People have just got to stick with us a little bit. You know we're never going to have any progress in our community if we completely banish any construction. You know we're going to have terrible roads, buildings falling apart, like construction is just part of living in a city. But hopefully we reduce the negative aspects of it as much as we can and then we reap all of the rewards after it. I mean, people talk we've talked about parking. People are complaining about how little parking there is downtown, even though there's a decent amount. But this construction is going to actually add parking back in. I've heard for years well, they need to straighten out that street like it was in the 50s. The street's getting straightened out. I mean there are so many things. They're listening.
Speaker 1:People are listening, people are listening and things are happening and things are going in the right direction, but there's no magic wand that can ever be waved to make everything happen without any inconvenience.
Speaker 2:We just do what we can to mitigate the risk. Without the orange cones, there wouldn't be progress.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:As frustrating as people tend to get like, you would be literally driving through ghost town if you didn't have construction and hitting every single pothole along the way.
Speaker 1:And don't get me wrong, I feel it too. Construction sucks. I hate coming down here during construction, but you still have to do it and you have to come down and you have to live through the construction. But yeah, I get that. It's a drag, it's frustrating, it's annoying. I don't live downtown, but when there's construction going on near my house it's frustrating too. It's loud and obnoxious and I can't get out of my driveway sometimes.
Speaker 2:But it's necessary. But then I've got this beautiful road right outside. It's part of the infrastructure, or a nice new sidewalk? Yeah, it's part of the infrastructure, our nice new sidewalk, yeah. So do you see, do you have an estimate of, maybe, how many people this will bring to Richmond Living, playing, working in Richmond?
Speaker 1:I don't have an estimate on the number of people, but one of our goals through this grant is to see the stop of the population decline. We want to see a turnaround of our population decline that really we've been seeing, I think, since the seventies, at least since the nineties the population has been slowly the population, yeah. So we want to see that stop and by bringing in living opportunities, we allow people to have the spaces that they want and therefore they will move in. They're already working here, they're already going to be coming here. For the Whitewater Gorge, which is going to be steps away from some of these apartments, this is going to become a bigger, brighter destination for people to want to move to, but they won't if they don't have the appropriate space to move into. So that's why these apartments are so important. There's going to be lots of space downtown.
Speaker 2:That's exciting Because I was thinking, like you know, orange Theories. I was thinking those gyms are really cool Because they're I mean with Elder Beerman if they stick to that same exact plan, that includes a gym a bike shop, all kinds of stuff. That gym will most likely, if it's like in the cities, be specific to those residents.
Speaker 1:Probably.
Speaker 2:So it would be cool to have like an Orange Theory or something like that down here.
Speaker 1:But that's why people say who would ever pay that much for an apartment? And I have a tendency to agree I might not necessarily, but that's why people say, well, who would ever pay that much for an apartment? And I have a tendency to agree I might not necessarily, but it's like living in a hotel.
Speaker 1:You have your gym, you've got your pool, you've got a pet place, you've got a garbage valet, like there's so much there and so that the people that can't afford it and a lot of them don't necessarily live in town right now, I think will be very attracted to it. So the elderbeerman demolition timeline is still moving along as planned. I think we can plan to or expect to see that building down by the end of the year, probably before the holidays, which is really exciting. Loop phase two is well underway. Anybody that comes downtown can see that for the two blocks that they've been working on that concrete has been poured. They still have a bit more work to do, but that should be done within the next couple months. And then they'll move on to do the next block on Main Street, which is the 900 block, and then, upon completion of downtown, they'll move into the Depot District.
Speaker 1:But I would say all of that could be done also by the holidays. You know we'll see all of that construction being done definitely before the end of the year. And then some of those build projects beyond the Elder Beerman project, like the Richmond Neighborhood Restoration Project, they're going to start working on some buildings, hopefully within the next couple months too. They're starting to secure some things, get some plans ready. So everybody is working so hard on the back end, but there's so much planning that still has to be done and permits to be gotten and funding to be secured and all these different things. But everything's moving, even though people aren't necessarily seeing it all happen right before their eyes. But I think we can anticipate seeing a few more physical things happen before the end of this year.
Speaker 2:That's super exciting. I love it. I love it. Well, thanks for coming up here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this has been a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:And let's do it another couple months or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that sounds awesome. I'm excited, appreciate it. Thanks. Life Inscripted with Kevin Shipp.
