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Indiana Secretary of Commerce Visits South Bend

Jennifer Weingart
/
WVPE Public Radio

 

The Indiana Secretary of Commerce stopped by South Bend on Monday to check in on the progress of the Regional Cities Initiative in the area.

The Regional Cities Initiative is a series of project and grants throughout the state meant to modernize local economies in the areas of education, transportation, workforce development, communication technology and others.

Jim Schellinger said that the Regional Cities projects are an opportunity for cites to change

“Reinventing yourself, you have to do that. The one constant has been Notre Dame for us, in South Bend and that’s great but we continue to have to re-invent our businesses and we have to come from a manufacturing to a more institutional, educational type of technology type environment and that’s what South Bend’s doing. And South Bend has never shied away from doing something different.”

Schellinger said South Bend’s project in the old Studebaker buildings illustrates those points well. Previously a bustling manufacturing plant and soon to be a think tank and innovation center, the Renaissance District is the picture of reinvention.

The first round of Regional Cities projects have to be done by the end of next year.