Elkhart officials say renovated historic buildings downtown, entrepreneurial spirit fuel growth
Residents consider Elkhart the city with a heart. That sentiment makes the $18 million renovation of the Lerner Theatre in 2011 the heart transplant the downtown needed.
The 2,000-seat theater, which opened Nov. 27, 1924, went through a series of owners and name changes until 1990, when the city purchased the vacant theater to save it from deterioration.
“Our downtown’s a great example of what I would say is the new age or comeback of Elkhart,” said Levon Johnson, president and CEO of the Greater Elkhart Chamber of Commerce. “Fifteen years ago, the idea of hanging out in downtown Elkhart was pretty much done.”
But, he said, a group of business leaders decided to make the old theater the showpiece downtown.
“That brought action shows from all over the country, which drew people downtown, and people are saying, ‘Boy, it would be nice to be able to eat and do something downtown besides go to the show,’” he said.
The business community heard the call.
“I believe that investment follows investment, and so more boutiques and businesses start to show up,” Johnson said.
Mayor Rod Roberson is happy about the downtown renaissance. He has fond memories of attending the Lerner Theatre.
“I saw my first R-rated move there,” accompanying his mother to see “Super Fly” when he was about 15.
The theater and the Crystal Ballroom next door are the anchor of the city’s downtown arts and entertainment district.
What’s old is new
Ideas to build on that momentum led to bigger development projects.
“And then the business leaders and the community got together and said, ‘Hey, we need a pool.’ And all of a sudden it was, ‘We just need to replace the old Y.’ And typical of Elkhart, it was, ‘Let’s do it right,’” Johnson said.
That pool, which holds 1.1 million gallons of water, is now a draw for national events.
“And all of a sudden you have the fifth-largest aquatic center in the country in downtown Elkhart, and now you’re bringing literally people from all over the country for swim meets,” Johnson said.
Elkhart Health & Aquatics was funded in collaboration with Beacon Health System, the Community Foundation of Elkhart County and Elkhart Community Schools. The city of Elkhart, Regional Cities Initiative and local community and business leader philanthropists also contributed to the $59 million project.
The 171,000-square-foot facility has a net economic benefit of over $7 million because of events there, translating into nearly 40,000 hotel room nights, said Jon Hunsberger, executive director of the Elkhart County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
At the Moose Rugby Grounds, the boys high school national championship three-day tournament had a $1 million economic benefit to the city, and that’s just one event there, Hunsberger said.
Once again, the business community stepped up to meet the need for overnight accommodations.
“We were holding national championships for colleges and for youth sports, and then it was, ‘Boy, we need the hotel downtown,’” Johnson said.
Luckily, they already had an option: The Hotel Elkhart needed restoration. Rather than raze it, the building was refurbished.
The $19 million restoration earned the Cook Cup, Indiana Landmarks’ top honor, this year.
The hotel, built in 1923, is the tallest building in downtown Elkhart.
Over the years, it attracted entertainers like Bob Hope, Ed Sullivan and Audie Murphy. Sen. Robert Kennedy made a stop there during his 1968 presidential campaign.
The hotel was converted to senior housing in the 1970s. The building began to show its age, needing new elevators and mechanical systems.
A complete renovation of all 115,000 square feet of the historic hotel resulted in 93 guest rooms, two restaurants, ballroom, meeting space, rooftop bar and fitness rooms.
Hunsberger said Elkhart now has more than 2,400 hotel rooms.
Reasons to visit
Visitors bring $816 million of total economic impact to Elkhart County, according to the most recent economic impact study.
“When visitors come here, they’re staying at our hotels, but then they’re also visiting our attractions and spending their dollars here in our local businesses, which is a huge benefit,” Hunsberger said.
He said beyond the downtown, other highlights include the riverwalk, Midwest Museum of American Art, the Ruthmere Museum, the New York Central Railroad Museum, and the Wellfield Botanical Gardens.
“We have the Quilt Gardens, which also celebrate our Amish culture and history here,” Hunsberger said. “A lot of activity is not only established but is being planned for vibrancy in our downtown.”
Common Council At-Large Councilor Arvis Dawson is also proud of the city’s progress. “Our downtown is kind of the heart of our city,” he said. “You can’t put a dollar tag on quality of life or quality of place issues. We love where we live; we live where we love.”
Reasons to stay
Roberson hopes to attract more people to live in Elkhart. “We want people to come to downtown, not through downtown.”
Cities the size of Elkhart are now looking to quality of place and quality of life as the lifeblood for their existence, he said. The U.S. Census Bureau said Elkhart had a population of 53,484 in 2023 up from 50,949 in 2010.
“Our downtowns and our relationships to attracting and creating experiences for residents and visitors has to be second to none in order for us to survive as a city and for us to move into a place where our residents feel as though they would like to live, work and play in Elkhart,” Roberson said. “That’s a different way that cities look at themselves.”
He said Elkhart is no different from other communities across the country.
“Their vision is tied to creating these types of experiences in their communities that speak to that level of entertaining, of experience, of attractiveness — events, things to do that characterize their existence,” Roberson said.
“You have to capitalize on your own unique strengths.”
Manufacturing mecca
Elkhart derives its name from the confluence of two rivers, the Elkhart and St. Joseph. Island Park, which sits in the middle of Elkhart, is shaped like an elk’s heart.
The city’s location is key to its long history of manufacturing.
“We’re over indexed tremendously,” Roberson said. “We are in certain counts in the top 10 for manufacturing per capita in the United States. A year or two ago we were the No. 2 metro area for manufacturing in the United States.”
He said the RV industry powers that trend, but there’s more to it than that.
“When you flash back generations, you will find musical instruments, which we still make here in Elkhart,” he said. “We were No. 1 in the world. And pharmaceuticals, we were No. 1 in the world. Alka-Seltzer was created here in Elkhart.”
Manufacturing provided 65,213 jobs in Elkhart County in 2023, according to Hoosiers by the Numbers.
“So manufacturing is just tethered to where we need to go in the future,” Roberson said. “The biggest challenge here is automation.”
Ivy Tech Community College’s advanced manufacturing flex lab in Elkhart offers more than 10,000 square feet of laboratory space to learn about the future of manufacturing.
Speedgrip Chuck Co., founded in Elkhart 77 years ago, is leaning heavily on advanced manufacturing. It invested $1.2 million in equipment its leaders say will help develop new products for Industry 4.0.
Industrial diversification is a goal for Dawson. After all, the city has had to reinvent itself multiple times, as Roberson noted, dominated by one industry to another. The RV industry is cyclical, tied closely to fuel prices and other economic trends.
“We want to be more of a tech place,” Dawson said.
Like Dawson, Roberson is concerned about having industries impervious to interest rate increases.
“It is understated how diverse our business base is,” Roberson said.
About 90% of the original equipment manufacturers in the RV industry are in Elkhart County, but so are 95% of their suppliers, he said.
“Remember, you have a house with all of these parts rolling down the street,” Roberson said. “During down times, we are still pushing products out the door.”
Johnson said industries are making necessary adjustments to technology changes.
“Businesses in this area are making far greater efficiencies in some level of higher quality and are less susceptible to some of the employment swings that happen when everything’s firing on all cylinders,” he said.
Investing in future
Providing a steady workforce is a priority for the city.
“One of the major challenges is making sure that we’re able to close the skills gap for those that are currently working and our future employees that are coming up through our schools and colleges and universities to make sure they can have the skill sets to continue to learn for the future of businesses in this area,” Johnson said.
Dawson praised Ivy Tech’s dual credit program.
“My granddaughter this summer is going to get her associate degree before she even graduates from high school,” he said earlier this year.
Manufacturers are attracted to Elkhart because of its location.
“We sit right in the middle of four industrial cities in the Midwest that literally generate an opportunity for us to move our goods and products across the Midwest and across the country,” Roberson said.
While manufacturing makes sense logistically in Elkhart, there are other advantages to doing business here.
“It is also tethered to people that would like to live in a space that has a low cost of living with beautiful scenery that provides events that can draw from these relationships or these population bases all across the Midwest,” he said.
One major employer already recognizes that. This fall, Walmart is opening an 800,000-square-foot distribution center, Dawson said.
Railroads are a part of the city’s history and its future as well. They first arrived in the city in 1851. The Norfolk Southern Railway’s Elkhart Yard is now the second-largest railroad yard for freight east of the Mississippi River, the city says.
About 100 trains move daily through the city. The city is working with the Indiana Department of Transportation on the Hively Avenue Overpass Project to address traffic congestion on the at-grade crossing there. About 6,000 vehicles cross every day.
Earlier this year, Patriot Rail began work on a long-awaited rail improvement project. Reconstruction of six rail crossings is the first step in a multi-phase plan by the city and Patriot Rail to upgrade and improve rail transit, improving the efficiency of moving freight to and from industries along the rail line.
Entrepreneurial spirit
Music is another longtime driver of economic development in Elkhart.
Conn-Selmer makes woodwind and brass instruments in Elkhart. Roberson’s mother-in-law worked for Selmer. It merged with Steinway Musical Instruments and United Musical Instruments in 2003.
Because of that musical history, Elkhart’s Jazz Fest has become known around the country.
“Most jazz aficionados and music professionals in general know about the Jazz Fest,” Roberson said.
Those roots run deep in the business community.
“We’re really an entrepreneurial spirit here,” Dawson said.
It’s a theme that others recognize.
“Entrepreneurship has always been key,” Johnson said. “The number of businesses in this area that started in somebody’s garage because they have an idea and were able to get support to get that business off the ground is very important.”
Entrepreneurial spirit must be accompanied by entrepreneurial action, he said. “The business community is very supportive. It’s helping entrepreneurs think through those things,” Johnson said.
The chamber devotes resources to helping businesses thrive, just as it has for nearly 100 years. It isn’t just about networking, although that’s important, but also about identifying barriers to success.
At the site of the former Concord Mall, small manufacturers are being lured to give them access to supply chain transportation routes. The plan is to help them grow in that space and perhaps even outgrow it.
“We have investors that have built spec buildings in anticipation for those companies being ready to grow and then move into other facilities,” Johnson said. “We’re trying to create an ecosystem that allows you to start, allows you to grow and allows you then to move in case they stay within Elkhart County.”
“It’s that kind of speculative investment and foresight and vision that is going to make a difference as new technologies are moving into the area.”
Housing report
Among the city’s challenges is providing enough housing.
“We at one time were the No. 1 housing market in the country,” Dawson said. The city is working with developers to provide workforce housing.
Roberson said the city is working to draw more residents downtown and to nearby neighborhoods. Apartments near the riverwalk, aquatics facility and medical center have a waiting list, Roberson said. That’s the power of having strong amenities people desire.
Additional housing is needed at all price points, Johnson said.
“Some of the density we have in our older homes is kind of high,” he said, making the area more walkable.
The city is intentionally being made more walkable downtown. Introducing trees and narrowing thoroughfares allows the city to redefine the downtown with residential living as well as with shops and small businesses.
“We want people to come and live in our downtown, so we’re changing those one-way streets to two ways,” Roberson said.
The $70 million aquatic center is within walking distance of downtown. It’s a symbol of the strong tradition of philanthropy in the city.
“We always seem to rise to the situation to meet the needs,” Dawson said. “We are our brothers’ keepers.”
Tangible results
The improvements in the city, especially its downtown, are paying off.
“Quite frankly, we have a little metric, proof of that,” Roberson said. “From 2000 to 2010, we suffered a 2% decrease in our population. From 2010 to 2020, we’ve incurred a 4% increase. So, when we looked at it over those 20 years, what caused the six-point swing? In 2010, we reopened a theater.”
Roberson was on the City Council at the time. Improvements downtown and throughout the city have continued.
“We’ve articulated a combination of revenue streams to make $150 million public investment into what we know will return half a billion dollars in private investment,” including 1,700 new housing units, Roberson said.
Elkhart was founded in 1831 when Dr. Havilah Beardsley bought one square mile of land at the confluence of the St. Joseph and Elkhart rivers. The city has transformed repeatedly since then and continues to work toward positioning itself for a bright future.
“I am an eternal optimist; however, I think the reality is that our community is dedicated to investing in its future,” Hunsberger said. “Having grown up in Elkhart County, I’ve seen our communities grow because individuals and the municipalities and our leaders have a vision. They can see out into the future, and we’re planning for it.”
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