Five questions with Logansport Mayor Chris Martin

Jun. 18—Logansport Mayor Chris Martin has a plan for the city, and he has spent the past three years guiding development and enthusiastically encouraging downtown businesses.

The Pharos-Tribune sat down with Martin to discuss his vision for Logansport, current and upcoming projects, and his favorite part of being mayor.

Where do you see Logansport one year from now, five years from now, and 10 years from now?

With all the progress that we've seen recently, I think next year is probably going to be the best year of the last four. The reason I say that is because you're going to see a lot more groundbreakings, you're going to see a lot more ribbon cuttings, but more importantly you're going to see the city grow over the next year.

The next five years depends on what happens next year. Just as anything else, it all kind of falls in place like a snowball effect. When I first ran for office in 2019, we talked about the snowball effect. One thing happens and the next kind of follows through. We've seen that a lot over the last three years with the hotel Home2 Suites coming in and Planet Fitness coming in on the east end. We've got Culvers, Wendy's, and Scooters, just to name a few. Then we've got local businesses that are reinvesting on the east end like Anderson's Glass. When you have those happening on the east end, it's going to be a snowball effect. Right now we're looking at a possible deal that could be coming soon to that area. Hopefully the announcement comes soon. That'll be more of that snowball effect. When Culvers, Wendy's, and Scooters all get done, that's going to be a snowball effect. You're going to start seeing a lot of nicer things in Logansport.

For the 10 year plan, our goal is to make sure in 10 years Logansport is updated to where we're supposed to be. We're supposed to be in 2022, but a lot of our equipment, a lot of our processes, and even our ordinances are out of date. We're seeing ordinances from 1980, 1990. Our equipment is still from 1990 and the early 2000's. We have to update that kind of stuff, but it does take time and it does take money. With new development, obviously that's going to allow us to invest more into our community and update us to that point.

What has been your greatest achievement as mayor so far?

Growth in downtown I think is our biggest accomplishment at this point. Honestly, it's more of a refresh of historical value because you've got a combination. In downtown, you've got so many things. We've got Black Dog Coffee, we've got La Fiesta on Sixth St., and we've got the new Science Project Brewery coming on North St. We've got the Old Style that just opened up recently again and we've got Uno's Pizza that decided to move downtown. We've got new housing that's coming to downtown. Logan Square Apartments is downtown, and then of course you can't forget Bonus Pints and a new refresh for the Riverview restaurant, all downtown. Then of course you mix in there the (Main Street Restoration Project) that we've had with the new facades, so it's kind of a refresher.

The Bird scooters have been a good success for our community. I know there are some people who are still kind of on the fence with it, but for the most part those Bird scooters have really helped downtown a lot. I know that there are a lot of people who utilize those Bird scooters to go from point A to point B or wherever it may be. Ultimately that allows for another form of transportation for people in our community.

Do you have a personal vision you would like to see come to fruition regarding Memorial Home?

I do believe in restoration of the Memorial Home. I don't think that it's a bulldozing type situation just yet. I think there's potential there, but we have to establish a plan. Our administration has been working with Indiana Landmarks, and we're trying to get a cost point, so a budget, established for the restoration of the Memorial Home. That should be first and foremost because we've got to know how much it's going to cost. Next will be a plan. Now that we know how much it is, what is the actual plan for it? What do we want it to be? What we'll do is, we'll actually hold public meetings so we can get the public involved and engaged and know what they want it to be. Hopefully we'll have options at that point to be able to lead them into that conversation. We want to try to get rid of the negativity and come together as a community to decide what we want it to be. Our administration is still working on making sure that we have that as a focal point.

Are there any upcoming projects on the horizon that you're particularly excited about?

(I'm excited about) the rail car conversion for downtown. The ultimate plan for the Urban Park is this (Martin gestures to rendering). We decided we wanted to phase it out, so ultimately, for future development, we should have an announcement by the end of the year for groundbreaking for housing. Ultimately, we want to make it look like this. We've got the railcar conversion here. We're getting two railcars donated to us from Transco. We want to convert one into a concession stand/kitchen so it allows nonprofit organizations to be able to have a kitchen there. Maybe we if we have some events they can have a fundraiser of some sort. On the other side will be restrooms. Restrooms are a big need, especially in this area right now, so what better way than to take state and federal money that is given to the city and incorporate that into our history, which is the railroad. Ultimately, we are using hardly any, if not no, local taxpayer dollars for this. That's a point we really want to make to make sure people are understanding that, look, we're not using local taxpayer dollars as much as you think. We do have the ARP money that is still available and of course the READI grant process that we've gone through with the state. This is more of fruition than I think we realize at this point. We've finally found the funding sources and it's not going to cost the taxpayers much money. This is coming soon, so we want to have a public meeting about this so we can show people this. Nothing will be done with Heritage Park. We want to leave Heritage Park alone at this point, but it may come up for discussion soon. Ultimately, you've got the arch gateway here. We'd add some concrete and then we'd also add a concrete pad. The railcars, we want to make sure they are on rails, so we'll have some rails to put them on that will also make them stationary. We'll build this concrete pad to help elevate it. We'll also have handicap accessible options, which are on the other side of the railcar. The platform acts as a gathering area, which is ultimately what we want to do. We want to create that atmosphere where people are not only going to Black Dog and Bonus Pints and the Science Project and Old Style, but they're also visiting downtown and in the outdoors enjoying it. This is our first phase of the commons, which we are actually looking at calling this The Railyard, so it'll be The Railyard at Little Turtle Waterway. This is going to be huge.

Hoosier Heartland is going to be another big one. We've worked so hard on this and we have McClure here now. McClure actually owns the east lots over here, so they are actually looking at contacting developers themselves and put them in there. Ivy Tech has been very generous and very helpful throughout this whole process. We wanted to make sure when we laid this out that Ivy Tech was involved in those conversations because this affects their campus. They've seen this multiple times and we've had multiple meetings with them and multiple conversations. They actually have donated a parcel of land for the disc golf course, which we're hoping to have groundbreaking for by the end of the year. The housing portion of this is actually coming to fruition as well. We're hoping to have a meeting here in the next month to be able to level that out and have housing here. When we talk about housing in this area, we talk about multiple levels of housing. You're talking about townhomes; you're talking about an apartment complex, both low and high end housing. We're also hoping to work with a developer soon on the retail and sit-down restaurant portion. Right now we're thinking that they may actually want to put housing above the retail portion on this side. Originally we didn't think that, but when you get people with experience who've done these projects before then hey, go at it. This here was originally supposed to be a community center. A community center came in at $8 to $10 million is I think what they estimated. It was a wild price, so we as a community were like, well that would be the last phase if we ever did that. We've been working maybe six months, seven months now with the developer of an indoor sports complex, so there's a possibility for an indoor sports complex. Then, of course, stakeholders like Logansport Memorial Hospital and Logansport Savings Bank. We've got the YMCA, the GridIron Gang, the Indianapolis Colts. They're all potentials to help this move forward.

Those two projects are probably the top for 2022. I think that one thing we've learned over the last three years is that, one, government takes too long, and two, now that we've laid out our plans and what we want, it's time for execution. We're ready to execute these plans that we started in 2020. A lot of these plans that you see either started in 2020 or are plans that we dusted off from previous administrations. Politics got in the way in previous years where projects were good, but unfortunately politics interfered. We want to make sure politics don't interfere in our administration, so we want to make sure the projects are were great ideas and are still possible are dusted off and brought to fruition. The railcar idea was ours, but the Urban Park idea was actually started in 2010, which was back during the Fincher administration. Just to kind of give you an idea of the timeline of what we're looking at, pretty much all we did was switch locations for where we wanted the Urban Park layout to be and then we added the railcars and a splash pad. I think that's all we've added. Those are things I think the community would like to know as we continue to build on these projects. Maybe do a little due diligence on your end and find out, was this project actually talked about back in 2010. What really is new and what is just being dusted off? Ultimately, I think this administration has done a great job. We look forward to leading the community for many more years to come, but it's all up to the voters next year.

What is your favorite part of being mayor?

The best part of being the mayor is seeing the amount of positive change that you can make in a community, especially your hometown. My hometown has always been and always will be the City of Logansport, Indiana. When you start to the amount of progress that we've been able to do, it makes that the most enjoyable part of this job.