The Amazon and GM battery plant projects coming west of South Bend are triggering their first economic development ripple effects.
The corner of State Road 2 and Larrison Boulevard looks like a lot of the landscape between South Bend and New Carlisle. Wide-open farmland.
But that’s about to start changing. The Amazon data center and General Motors-Samsung electric battery plants will create hundreds of jobs when they’re finished in a few years. Meanwhile, the workers building the plants, the infrastructure serving them, and other related businesses and suppliers will need things like lodging, food and gas.
On Tuesday the St. Joseph County Council will consider first reading of a zoning change a developer is seeking at State Road 2 and Larrison Boulevard, also called Strawberry Road, to build a hotel, gas station and “travel center.”
Bill Schalliol, the county’s economic development director, said this is just the beginning of the transformation that area will see in coming years, from the two big projects and the developing Indiana Enterprise Center industrial park.
Schalliol byte … THE PARK AREA :11
The county and state also plan a new interchange at the corner. Schalliol said the county will work to extend water and sewers to the site by the end of the year or early next year.
