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July 26, 2012

WestGate fights back after Star article

By Nate Smith Washington Times-Herald

CRANE — The leaders of the WestGate @ Crane Technology park are celebrating its seventh year of existence this month, coincidentally after a newspaper article raised questions about funding at the park.

WestGate released a press release Wednesday celebrating $75 million in public and private investments and 1,400 employees. The release said the birth the park started in July 2005 when Daviess County started talks of expanding its park with Greene and Martin counties.

The area in the three counties was dotted here and there with abandoned Army barracks, a former elementary school and burned-out trailers,” WestGate Authority president Kent Parisien said in the release. “But the vision was clear.”

The vision created one of the largest parks of its type in the nation, home to 12 defense contractors and 1,400 employees. It promises to get larger with the completion of I-69 from Evansville at the end of this year and the opening of the 64,000 square-foot WestGate Academy this fall.

But the academy and a large part of it was the subject of an article by The Indianapolis Star last Sunday. In The Star article, titled “Disaster relief? Well, not really,”  Washington D.C.-based reporter Maureen Groppe wrote the park received $6.7 million in disaster relief funds from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Agency to build the academy building.

“None of these grants from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration had any direct connection to the damage caused by the (2008) storms and were for long-planned projects,” Groppe wrote.

The story also shown pictures of the 2008 flooding in Elnora and the building itself. The academy was the largest benefactor of EDA funds in the story, with $6.7 million in funds.

The EDA disaster program gives out funds for projects that are in, or close to, disaster areas that affect the economic recovery of the affected region.  

In the story, she quoted Greg Jones, executive director of the Loogootee-based Southern Indiana Development Commission. Jones said the academy and the WestGate park will do well.  

An EDA spokesman said the department has a long history of partnering with disaster-impacted communities  to advance their long-term economic recovery, including the WestGate Academy Conference Center.

“The WestGate @ Crane Technology Park is projected to have a positive economic impact on the region, providing a business accelerator and training space for entrepreneurs and small business owners,” the spokesman said. “The project is expected to create 255 jobs and generate nearly $11 million in private investment, according to grantee estimates.”

WestGate will also open a Comfort Suites hotel this fall to accommodate business travelers coming to the tech park and soon will build a $12 million project called the Battery Innovation Center. The center, according to Parisien, is “expected to attract and create a whole new engery-development related national cluster for the region, complementing the work performed by NSWC Crane.”

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