Saturday, April 30, 2005 8:45am - 3:00pm
Meet at the History Center parking lot and take an informative journey up the St. Mary's River with guides Donn Werling, Executive Director of the History Center and Allen County historian, Tom Castaldi
The event is open to the public and costs $27/person (including lunch)
Pre-registration is required
Call 260-426-2882 x 310 for more information
Fort Wayne, Ind. — Mayor Graham Richard today announced plans for public work sessions and the creation of a steering committee to build on the significant progress already achieved through the Downtown Blueprint for the Future. The goal is to take downtown revitalization to the next level.
Interactive work sessions will be held May 17-19 and June 4-7. It will bring together key stakeholders, elected officials, neighborhood leaders, and the general public to specify what downtown projects and goals should be fast-tracked for development. A steering committee will help guide the process and spearhead community consensus building. The committee will be chaired by Bob Taylor, President of Do it Best. George Huber with the Downtown Improvement District will serve as co-chair.
The work sessions are intended to celebrate the successes achieved, consider anew the recommendations contained in the 2003 Downtown Blueprint in light of changing conditions, emerging ideas and new resources, and develop community consensus to guide continued downtown revitalization.
The creation of the work sessions and the steering committee mark the midpoint in the life of the downtown five-year plan. Of the more than 70 projects outlined in the original document, nearly half have been accomplished or are underway.
"Downtown Fort Wayne is alive with opportunity," said Mayor Richard. "It's buzzing with construction projects, and new development ideas continue to emerge. The Downtown Blueprint has spurred much of this action. Working together with renowned consultant, Gianni Longo, we'll decide where to put our energies and resources to stimulate downtown growth, jobs, housing, and activity. We'll pick the projects, select the sites and identify the strategies to ensure success moving forward."
Nationally-recognized architect and planning visionary Gianni Longo will facilitate the meetings. He is a founding Principal of ACP Visioning & Planning, New York City and Columbus, Ohio. ACP is the firm currently engaged with the City of Fort Wayne and Allen County in Plan-it Allen!, the initiative to develop the community's first-ever, joint comprehensive land-use and development plan.
Regarded as a leader in strategic public engagement processes, Longo directed Chattanooga's "Vision 2000" effort in the mid-1980s that led to the renaissance of its downtown. More recently, he has been at the forefront of projects in New York City for Lower Manhattan and the World Trade Center site, Washington, D.C., Houston and the Knoxville, Birmingham and Kansas City regions, among others.
Additional expertise will be supplied by Jack Swarbrick of Baker & Daniels, Chris Paladino of Mansur Real Estate Services and Mike Higbee of Development Concepts. Each has been actively engaged in providing professional counsel to downtown development endeavors.
"Downtown is a showcase for our creative spirits and heritage," said Mayor Richard. "The momentum is building for a new downtown, one that contributes in all ways to the health of our community.
Since the Blueprint's unveiling late in 2002, the public sector has been a primary catalyst to implementation. The City has championed the creation of foundational elements to position downtown for private investment. These financial tools and resources include the downtown Community Revitalization Enhancement District, the 2005 CEDIT bond which dedicated $10 million to downtown projects, a $500,000 transportation enhancement grant focused on urban trails for downtown, and other urban tax incentives.
Young Leaders of Northeast Indiana (YLNI) is a young, dynamic group committed to making our community a vibrant and viable place to live, work and play. www.ylni.org
Friday, May 20 - 6–10 p.m.
Dash-In
814 South Calhoun, Fort Wayne, IN
(must be 21 or over to enter)
Free parking in the parking garage on the corner of Wayne and Calhoun.
Get involved.
Make a difference.
JOIN US!
Sponsored by: Fort Wayne Business Journal
Please R.S.V.P. to rsvp@ylni.org
Saturday, April 23, 2005
12 noon - 5 p.m.
Indiana Institute of Technology
Andorfer Commons
1600 E. Washington Blvd.
Fort Wayne, IN 46803
No admission charge
Sample foods from different countries
Enjoy the music and dance of various lands
Contact Zenovia Pearson 427-2625 for additional information
Fort Wayne, Ind.- This year, Earth Day is being celebrated at Cinema Center Tech on the campus of Indiana Tech. On Thursday, April 21 at 7:00pm, the public can enjoy a free evening at Cinema Center Tech and view two half-hour films, Fate of a River: Apathy or Action (1965) & Fate of a River: Revisited (2000). Attendees can learn about the condition of our Maumee River watershed in the 1960s and how it has improved in the past 40 years. Before the films, the public can visit booths of local environmental groups; afterward a panel of local stakeholders will take questions and foster discussion about water quality.
The event and refreshments are free and sponsored by Cinema Center, Indiana Tech and the Allen County Partnership for Water Quality.
The Allen County Partnership for Water Quality was created in 2002 by the City of Fort Wayne, City of New Haven and Allen County, with a mission of better educating residents about our water resources. This program, and others sponsored by the ACPWQ, is free to the public.
Cinema Center Tech is located in Andorfer Commons on the Indiana Tech campus at 1600 E. Washington. For more information about this event, contact Allison Van Zandt with the ACPWQ at 484-5848 ext.111.
Publisher: News Sentinel
Author: Leo Morris
Mike Fritsch and Darwin Dahlgren were walking around in downtown Indianpolis one day and happened to run into Fort Wayne Mayor Graham Richard. While they were talking, a car took a turn around the corner too sharply and drove onto the median. Then, a second car did the same thing, and a third.
"You know," Richard said, "that's probably a design flaw (in the road), but nobody knows about it."
"It's funny you should mention that," Fritsch replied. "We're working on something that would take care of that."
Because of that chance encounter and conversation, the city of Fort Wayne became one of the many "partners" for Zoom Information Systems, the new company of Fritsch and Dahlgren located in the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center off of Illinois Road. And when Zoom demonstrated its work for the Transportation Research Board's annual meeting in January, it was one of the city's dump trucks that took part in the experiment.
The vehicle, made by International Truck (another partner) simply drove around a few Fort Wayne streets. But sensors on the truck send graphs to computer screens watched by the 10,000 people who attended the meeting, and cameras on the trucks sent real-time photos of what the streets looked like. The peaks and valleys in the graphs represented road conditions — cracks and bumps, even potholes. The cameras offered proof that what the graphs were showing represented true conditions.
Imagine — as Fritsch and Dahlgren have — how variations of that little exercise could change driving in this country. What the company OnStar now does — providing mapping directions by satellite — is small stuff compared to what is possible.
"A lot of the sensors are already in vehicles," says Zoom President Fritsch (Dahlgren is CEO), "and collecting so much information. The trick is to put the information in the right buckets to analyze it and make use of it."
That's where the software programs being developed by Zoom will come in. Vehicles moving on roads all across the country will send information to state transportation departments, trucking companies, even individual cars. Your car could tell you, for example, that there's a traffic jam developing up ahead, or that there's a patch of ice coming up. Your windshield sensors could help the National Weather Service give immediate advice on developing conditions. Shock-absorber sensors could tell city, county or state road departments where potholes and pavement breaks are.
"Even that curve up ahead could talk to you — 'Hey, Dummy, slow down.' "
If you've heard traffic reports from bigger cities, you know some of this is going on now, sort of. "When you hear, for example, that it's taking so many minutes to negotiate such-and-such a highway into Chicago, they do with cameras, by taking pictures of license plates.. If they take a picture of a license plate at one point on the road, then record it 18 minutes later at another, that's the time they give you." That's not exactly real time, which is what dealing with today's traffic requires.
"A lot of departments of transportation are moving from the road-building business — at this point, there are only so many more roads you can build — and into the traffic-unsnarling business. Traffic is never going to do anything but increase."
Indiana was the perfect place to locate the new business, Fritsch says, because of how many auto and trucking businesses there are. And northeast Indiana is particularly well-suited. It takes five pages to list the companies in the eight economic clusters important to the region; two of the five are devoted just to the automotive cluster.
Zoom has only six employees and doesn't have a system in place yet. But a lot of people believe in its potential, including all the company's partners. One of them is Boeing, which hopes its satellites will be used to collect the data. Another is the state of Indiana, which provided a $1.5 million Indiana 21st Century & Research Fund grant.
And if you're not a believer, just think about it for a moment next time you try to drive home during rush hour.
1301 Lafayette St, Ft. Wayne, In, 46802
Phone: 260-426-3000
Art Exhibition: Mee Kyung Shim
Friday, April 22, 2005
7:00 P.M. - 11:00 P.M.
Sponsored By: Opus 24
@ Desoto Building/Avant Garde Art Gallery
2005 Indiana Hispanic Leadership Summit
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
1:00 P.M. - 5:00 P.M.
@ Columbia Club- Indianapolis, In.
Sposnorship Opportunities Available
www.Ihc4u.org
Viva College: Fort Wayne Hispanic Scholarship Endowment
Golf Outing
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Noon - 5:00 P.M.
@ Brookwood Golf Club
Sposnorship Opportunities Available
www.desototm.net
Fiesta 2005: 31 Annual Fort Wayne Hispanic Heritage Festival
Friday, September 2 - Sunday, September 4, 2005
Noon- Midnight
@ Freimann Square/Performing Art Center (Downtown Fort Wayne)
Sposnorship Opportunities Available
www.desototm.net
Latinos Count 2005
Fort Wayne Hispanic Community Conference
Wendnesday, September 28, 2005
9:00 A.M. - 4:30 P.M.
Keynote Speaker: Edward James Olmos
@ Taylor University- Fort Wayne
Sposnorship Opportunities Available
www.desototm.net
The Fourth and Final Program in ARCH's 2005 Free Lecture Series
Presented by Don Orban, Historic Preservation Planner, City of Fort Wayne
Date: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 at 7:00 p.m.
Location: Shawnee Branch Allen County Public Library, 5600 Noll Avenue, Fort Wayne, IN
Cost: Free
That do-hicky under the eaves has a name. So does that thingamajig over the window and that row of whatchamacallits along the porch. Trying to identify all those parts that give your home its unique sense of style can be confusing...and then there's figuring out how to paint everything!
If you enjoy looking at historical buildings, or you really do have to paint your do-hicky, stop by the Shawnee branch library at 7 p.m. E.S.T.
April 20th for "Hues and Clues," the fourth in ARCH's free and easy lecture series. Solve the mysteries of architectural style and find out their true colors."
Monday, April 18th, 2005
5-8pm, unveiling: 6:00pm
Henry's Restaurant, 536 W. Main Street, Fort Wayne, IN
Local artist Diane Allen Groenert will unveil her latest painting "Henry's" at a reception on Monday the 18th. "Henry's" is the latest in a series of charming oil paintings the artist has been doing of downtown Fort Wayne sites. Groenert will have note cards and prints from the "Downtown Series" available for purchase. Cash bar and Henry's full food menu will be available.
"Getting the commission to do Henry's was a thrill for me," says Groenert. "I was first introduced to Henry's as the art school bar while studying at the Fort Wayne School of Fine Arts in the early '70's. Later that decade, I worked for Henry Freistroffer, the bar's namesake. Henry's then was one long room and when chairs ran out, patrons would be seated on beer kegs and boxes of beer bottles. Conversations went on into the night even as patrons slipped down under tables. No swearing or dancing was allowed and Henry was there to see it was so- 'a cosmopolitan bar' he'd describe it. And it remains so to this day. I attempted to represent and describe in paint the different peoples and talents who gather there every evening — and the excitement that ebbs and flows through those doors."
"My biggest influences are Robert Crumb, the cartoonist, and local painter Tim Johnson. Crumb animated my paintings and Tim's mentoring excited my color sense, " says Groenert.
Fort Wayne, Ind. -- Fort Wayne Mayor Graham Richard today joined officials from General Motors to celebrate the addition of four new GM hybrid pickup trucks to the City's fleet.
"By making innovative investments, we become more competitive in attracting new businesses and jobs to our community," said Mayor Richard. "We are a leader in providing excellent services in a way that promotes fiscal responsibility and a clean environment."
The GMC Sierra hybrid pickup trucks, assembled at the Fort Wayne GM plant, combine a conventional gasoline engine with an electric motor to provide a fuel economy savings of 10 percent. That is the highest estimated fuel economy of any full-size truck. The trucks get more miles from each gallon of gas because of the engine start/stop function and regenerative braking, which turns the motor into a generator as the truck decelerates. For additional savings, the fuel is shut off instantly any time the truck is coasting or braking.
The electric motor provides fast, quiet starting power and the ability to generate up to 14,000 watts of continuous electric power. The electricity has many uses including providing 20 amps of 120-volt household-like power through outlets in the cab and pickup bed to operate power tools at a construction site.
Three of the trucks will be used by the Water Pollution Control Maintenance Department. The fourth truck will be used by the Water Maintenance Department.
Hybrid vehicles are part of Mayor Richard's "Green City" initiative aimed at improving government services and making the City more environmentally friendly. The vehicles were purchased from Don Ayres Pontiac-GMC-Honda in Fort Wayne.
Submitted by Robbin Melton
The Spring Regional 2005 CGOA/TKGA conference convened in Valley Forge, PA and we are now accepting membership applications to establish an official affiliate chapter of the Crochet Guild of America in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Email robbin12@aol.com for an application and additional information.
Tomorrow Starts: Right Now at the Plan-it Allen! Community Choices Workshops
Submitted by Angela Boerger
We collected our dreams. We explored all the data. Now it’s time to begin charting a new course for our community.
Join your friends and neighbors in crafting our first-ever, joint plan for land and living in Allen County/Fort Wayne.
Come to a Plan-it Allen! Community Choices Workshop.
Monday, April 18
6:30 - 8:30 pm
Homestead High School
4310 Homestead Road
Tuesday, April 19
6:30 – 8:30 pm
New Haven High School Auditeria
1300 Green Road, New Haven
It’s our tomorrow. Plan-it Allen! today.
Call Jane Yoh at 427.2175 or check out www.planyourcommunity.org for more info.
By Ryan Lengerich in The News-Sentinel
Allen County should focus on creating neighborhoods with nearby retail, community centers and green space, a consultant told city and county planning officials Tuesday.
Members of the city-county Comprehensive Plan Committee listened for more than two hours as Kim Littleton of ACP-Visioning and Planning in Columbus, Ohio, outlined land-use goals and projected where and how the county will grow.
The meeting was another step toward developing the first comprehensive land-use and development plan for the city and county. "Plan-it Allen!," now in a draft phase, must be approved by city and county plan commissions, which could happen by year's end.
Littleton challenged committee members to think about how they will address population growth projected at 68,000 people in the next 20 years.
"Neighborhoods are the building block of the community," Littleton said. "We want to create a community that works efficiently, not just looks efficient."
Littleton said the county needs to maximize land containing higher-density housing, while planning for greenbelts, or areas of green space within a community, and stores and public transportation stops within walking distance of where people live. He said commercial retail should exist within neighborhoods, a move that would force planning commissions to zone land for multiple uses.
Allan Frisinger, county plan commission vice president, said he remembers growing up in areas where businesses, parks and schools were within walking distance.
"Mixed-use development is something that has probably been ignored for a long time," Frisinger said. "It doesn't hurt to think along the lines that we need to go away from this segregated block of residential, block of commercial, block of industrial."
Littleton presented a map showing about 61,000 acres in the county are available for development with sewer service, much of it north and west. Committee members will decide in upcoming months whether that is the direction they want the county to continue to grow.
Mike Bynum, city plan commission president, said he envisions potential growth downtown.
"What we are finding a lot is people want to see downtown development, and the high-density housing would be apartments. A lot of your younger people want to move to the downtown areas to have those lofts or apartments where you can walk within a certain area to do things -- not just move out to the suburbs."
Builder plans 19 downtown condos
By Jenni Glenn in The Journal Gazette
A $2.3 million project to convert a vacant factory into urban loft-style condominiums will add to the city's housing stock within easy reach of downtown.
If the 19 condos just north of downtown sell quickly, the developer might build more housing in the neighborhood south of the YWCA. John McKay, president of Hartland Development, envisions building as many as 415 housing units there and investing up to $85 million.
The future of redevelopment efforts in the neighborhood north of the St. Marys River has been a question mark since December, when the Salvation Army rejected a proposal to build a $176 million community center on the YWCA site and adjacent property owned by OmniSource.
So far, Hartland Development has scheduled a makeover for only the former Colwell Inc. paint chip production facility at 200 Sixth St., on the northwest corner of Harrison Street. The red-brick building will house seven, two-story condos and 12 single-story units. The condos will range in size from 1,350 to 2,000 square feet. McKay said he will start pre-selling the condominiums Friday for between $150,000 and $180,000.
Construction will start about Aug. 1 and last about 10 months, said Holly Hunter, vice president for Hamilton Hunter Builders Inc., the project contractor.
The condos will retain the "industrial flavor" of the factory, said Michael McKay, a partner in the architecture firm Morrison Kattman Menze Inc., which is designing the housing. He and John McKay are brothers.
Renovations will leave the duct work near the 12-foot-tall ceilings exposed, along with some masonry work, Michael McKay said. The building's brick walls will be left in place. The windows and wooden floors need to be replaced, but Michael McKay said the new features will try to mimic the feel of the factory. The one-story office building on the lot will be demolished to make room for garages.
The structure was built in the 1890s to house General Printing Corp. The printing company was later owned by Colwell Inc., which vacated the building in 2001 when the paint sample manufacturer consolidated its operations in Kendallville, said Ellen Mann, vice president of account services for Colwell.
McKay has an agreement to buy the building for $550,000. He said renovating the factory will cost about $1.8 million.
Similar urban loft housing is being built in former warehouses in major cities such as New York and Chicago, Michael McKay said. The final result should appeal to empty-nesters and young professionals, he said.
"I'm guessing once Fort Wayne sees these, we won't be able to sell them fast enough," he said.
John McKay said he anticipates demand for urban housing could cause the condos to sell quickly. This project could fuel further residential redevelopment in the neighborhood, which contains single-family homes, rental homes and light-industrial operations.
McKay's ideas involve building brownstones along Cass Street, adding other lofts along Harrison Street and constructing a mid- to high-rise apartment building in the southern part of the neighborhood near the St. Marys River.
Fort Wayne has "a pent-up need for urban housing," he said. The city needs more housing options to entice people to move downtown, he said.
Mayor Graham Richard said he is pleased to see the developer investing in an area near downtown and giving an old building a new, residential use.
Studies commissioned by the city and others have pinpointed a need for this type of urban condominium, said Heather Presley, the city's deputy director for housing and neighborhood services.
"These are what we call catalyst projects," she said. "This will show the community another lifestyle option."
Neighbors want to see the building and the larger neighborhood redeveloped, said Robert Martin, president of the Bloomingdale Neighborhood Association, which includes the vacant factory. More than half of the homes in the area are rentals, and the neighborhood would benefit from upgraded, owner-occupied houses, he said. The project will encourage landscaping and other beautification efforts.
"It's the gateway to downtown, any way you slice it," Martin said.