A Q&A with Ted O’Connell, Jacobsville Area Community Corp. in Evansville
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In August, Ted O’Connell was named director of development of the Jacobsville Area Community Corp. in Evansville. The neighborhood, located just north of downtown, is home to historic Bosse Field and Garvin Park as well as Willard Library, Indiana’s oldest public library.
O’Connell is originally from Mount Vernon and has worked in sales and marketing since graduating from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale with a bachelor’s in marketing in 2015. His position with JACC, which was funded by tax increment financing and a grant from the Evansville Redevelopment Commission, is expected to last until December 2025.
O’Connell spoke with Inside INdiana Business about current redevelopment initiatives in Jacobsville, updating the 2013 Jacobsville Redevelopment Area Plan and his vision for the neighborhood’s revitalization.
Describe your role as director of development for the Jacobsville Area Community Corp.
My goal and my role is to bring investment into Jacobsville neighborhood, not only residential but commercial as well, increase quality of life and livability for the residents in the neighborhood, and then ensure the success of the Jacobsville Redevelopment Area Plan update, which the government has just begun. They’re actually doing land analysis for it now, but that should start probably beginning of next year.
What’s happening in Jacobsville on the housing front?
There has been some investment into the neighborhood, but overall, if you look at Jacobsville as a whole, there’s not a lot of affordable housing. There’s a low vacancy rate, meaning that the houses that are being rented out, only about 2% don’t have anybody renting them, which puts a lot of power in the hands of the landlords.
We want that ideally to be between 4% and 6%, which allows a tenant with a bad landlord to have some mobility and maybe go live somewhere else with a landlord that treats them better. But because the vacancy is so low, there’s not a lot of opportunity for that.
One of the reasons why the vacancy is so low is there are a lot of vacant houses in Jacobsville that are in not good enough shape to live in that need money.
Are there any housing development plans in the works?
An Indianapolis-based company is doing a big affordable housing complex off of Louisiana in Jacobsville. There’s also quite a bit of development closer to the Lloyd Expressway near Division Street. There’s Forge on Main, a brand-new apartment complex that just went up. Baker Flats, that’s another affordable housing complex that’s going up.
What’s going on with business development?
There was an IGA that left a few years ago, and there wasn’t a lot of good food available for the people who live in Jacobsville, partially because a lot of them don’t have vehicles. They’re relying on walking. I don’t know if it was technically considered a food desert, but if it wasn’t, then it should have been before we got that Dollar General in Forge on Main. So that was a big win for the neighborhood, for sure.
My focus first is on the neighborhood and on the houses, because as more people with disposable income move into the neighborhood, the more businesses it would attract.
The Jacobsville Redevelopment Area Plan update has just begun. We’re still working on the strategy aspect of it and plan on actually doing implementation next year. There’s going to be some business development incorporated in that, but we’re not quite to that point yet.
What’s the status of the lead contamination cleanup? That’s been an ongoing issue for years.
It’s a Superfund site through the EPA, so there are continuous projects going on to clean up the yards. They dig them up for free and check for lead.
Part of the reason more isn’t being done with that is because of out-of-state landlords—getting a hold of the people that need this type of work done and then raising awareness about it, which is something I’m continuously doing. If they clear a house in the neighborhood and there’s an empty piece of land, I make sure to tell them about the Superfund so they can take advantage of that.
What else is happening in Jacobsville?
The city wants to move the Jacobsville Arch [between Bosse Field and Deaconess Aquatic Center] down to the corner of Indiana and Main, a little further south, so when people enter the neighborhood from Division Street and the Lloyd Expressway, they know they’re in Jacobsville.
In addition, there’s a five-year parks plan that’s going into place. I actually met with the deputy director of the parks department yesterday, and she said Garvin Park is going to be a major focus of that five-year parks plan.
There’s not much else happening right now since the mayor is leaving at the end of the year. So we’re planning and getting ready to go for the new government that comes in next year.
You’ve lived in North Carolina for several years. You also traveled across the country. What brought you back to Indiana? And what is your history with Jacobsville?
I lived in North Carolina for four years. I lived in a van for three years and traveled around the U.S. while working remotely for software companies. I hit 49 states and over 100,000 miles in a camper van.
Then one of my family friends was selling an old schoolhouse, German Township School No. 5 on the northwest side of Evansville. I loved the house and the piece of property. I knew I was going to move back here eventually to be close to family. So I bought the house. I wasn’t ready to move in yet, but I bought the house. I kept traveling for about a year and then finally moved in.
Then another house came up for sale. I bought a home in Jacobsville last winter, a house that had caught fire. I was able to salvage it and am currently renovating it. I actually got siding delivered this morning.
When I was growing up, my first job was helping my dad clean out houses that he bought and turned into rental houses in Jacobsville. I think he bought the first rental house back in 2006. So that’s how far back my history goes in Jacobsville, working on those rental houses.
What challenges do you expect to face in improving Jacobsville?
Affordable housing seems to be the number one thing on everybody’s mind right now, getting these houses to the point where they’re livable. It’s a double-edged sword. Houses are cheap in Jacobsville, which is a good thing because it’s a low barrier to entry. But then all the work you need to do to renovate a house and get it ready to live in, the houses almost aren’t worth what you put into it. So that’s a major hurdle we need to overcome.
Safety is another one, safety and the branding of the neighborhood. A lot of people still refer to this area as Jimtown, which is a little bit east of here. But to be honest, whenever I came here in 2006, we referred to it as Jimtown. So really doing a better job with the branding so people know it as Jacobsville.
And working with the community police organization. How do we make it a safer neighborhood? There are some things we could do as far as infrastructure that can help out with crime. Another part is all the vacant houses that people are squatting in as well. That’s a problem that needs to be addressed. [Vacant houses drive] more people into the neighborhood who are homeless because there are plenty of opportunities for them to live for free.
We want to make sure the community and the people in the neighborhood are part of this Jacobsville Redevelopment Area Plan update that we’re starting so it actually solves the needs of the residents. That’s a huge part, being a bridge between the community and the actions the government’s taking.
What are you hoping to achieve in Jacobsville?
I want it to be a cultural center. There are all these cultural districts in Evansville that have great history, like downtown and Haynie’s Corner in the arts district. Just seeing this be a cultural hub, utilizing the parks and the greenways and all the bike trails, I want to see Main Street flooded with people biking up and down the trail for exercise and people walking to work.
I want to see the houses in Jacobsville to be filled with people. I want the population to go up, not down. I want people to feel safe when they’re walking around Garvin Park at night or even in the late afternoon. If we could solve those problems, a lot of the rest of the problems would solve themselves.
If we get people biking up and down Main and we get more people that move to Jacobsville, the commercial development and the investors will start moving in as the people move in.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Jacobsville’s upside is phenomenal. It has a fantastic history, one of the most beautiful, historic parks. Garvin Park and Bosse Field are staples within Evansville. And Jacobsville is becoming a very walkable bikeable neighborhood for people to live in.
There are also fantastic employers in Jacobsville. So getting some of those employees from Berry Global, AmeriQual, Deaconess and CenterPoint Energy to move into this neighborhood and walk to work, that would be phenomenal to see. If we get to that point, Jacobsville is going to look a lot different.