The city of Elkhart hasn’t had this kind of plan before. The city has hired Thomas P. Miller & Associates, which will subcontract with a variety of players, to do the city’s first comprehensive economic development plan dubbed Elkhart 2040. One of the key players involved will be Shelley Moore, president/founder of Insight Strategic Concepts, Inc. Moore has been a key planner of the River District and was hired to help see that the Elkhart Health & Aquatics got built. “The city of Elkhart has never taken proactive account for its own development and growth,” Moore told me last week as we chatted at The Electric Brew. The city’s Board of Public Works had just approved the $320,000 contract for the plan.

The massive Elkhart Health & Aquatics Center is finally ready. The doors are open to more than workers or those getting tours of the construction. Events are showing off the 170,000-square-foot building to people who helped pay for it and to those who will use the facility, which opens officially on Thursday. The building feels huge. “The first thing people say when they walk in is, ‘Wow.’ It’s the magnitude of it,” said Shelley Moore, president/founder of Insight Strategic Concepts, who was hired to oversee many aspects of the project.

For the American economy to rally and re-establish strong growth trends, we must examine at its foundation: manufacturing. The foundation is eroding at an alarming rate, and rather than reinforcing it we must focus on renovation through innovation.