Q&A with Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke on leaving office and joining E-REP
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Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke is leaving office after 12 years on the job. The Republican announced in 2022 that he would not seek a fourth term and will be succeeded by Democrat Stephanie Terry.
Come January, Winnecke will become CEO of Evansville Regional Economic Partnership. Winnecke spoke with Inside INdiana Business about transitioning from public office to economic development.
You’ve been mayor of Evansville for more than a decade. What’s changed since 2012?
I have a lot more gray hair. It was all blonde when I started twelve years ago.
There’s a greater vibrancy in our downtown. There’s greater pride in how we market our community and our region beyond our boundaries. We’re the third largest city in the state, and I feel like we’re playing to that these days. The private sector goals and visions for the region are fairly well aligned with local government and the nonprofit and faith communities.
What’s stayed the same?
There’s still a level of skepticism, not just about local government, but all units of government at all levels. People probably look at what happens on the federal level and get tired of that. Threats of a government shutdown, what this deadline means or that deadline means.
When you see dysfunction in Washington, it doesn’t mean it’s happening in your city halls or your statehouses. Those of us who are in the local and regional levels of government get painted with that brush.
What have your successes been as mayor?
We’ve done a really good job of building on the successes of the previous administration. Had Mayor [Jonathan] Weinzapfel not overseen the construction of the Ford Center, it would have been a lot more difficult to justify the expense and going through the energy of getting a convention hotel. It would have been difficult to justify the investment and all that goes with the medical school campus downtown.
[The medical school campus is] important on a couple of fronts. First, there’s certainly an economic benefit from it being downtown, and the dozens of businesses that have opened in and around the medical school campus have really added to the vibrancy. Second, and perhaps most importantly, that campus—where there is graduate and undergraduate medical education occurring under the same roof—is building a new pipeline of healthcare professionals.
We know that seven in ten doctors stay in the communities in which they do their training. So when our region went to the legislature and said, hey, we need more residency programs, that dovetailed with the investment that the state and the city were making on the medical school campus. We know that when a doctor trains at Deaconess or Ascension St. Vincent or Good Samaritan in Vincennes or Memorial in Jasper, there’s a greater likelihood they’ll stay here.
I would also point to a lot of quality-of-life projects that we’ve championed, that were in the early or middle stages of construction when the pandemic hit. We pushed forward two of those, specifically the state-of-the-art Deaconess Aquatic Center. Because we have that, the city of Evansville will host the 2025 NCAA Division II National Swimming and Diving Championships.
We also proceeded with the Kinney Family Penguins of Patagonia exhibit at [Mesker Park] Zoo. As a result, we had record attendance last year. Over 205,000 people visited our zoo. It’s the largest family attraction in our area.
What challenges have you faced as mayor?
The challenges are almost always financial. We have a lot of projects that we would love to do, and if money were no object, we’d be churning them out right and left. Funding is always a challenge, whether it’s funding through city means or from the private sector.
Another challenge would be public safety. Inevitably, crime happens, and we do our best. We’re fortunate to have a phenomenal police department. They are accredited at the highest level that a law enforcement agency can be accredited, but we’re not immune from bad things that happen. We are seeing an improvement in group violence, a decline in the number of shootings relating to group violence.
We have a great fire department. We pour a lot of energy and attention into a lot of financial resources. But you can’t predict what bad things are going to happen. In little over a year, we’ve had a house explosion that killed three people. We’ve had three multi-alarm fires that destroyed three warehouses in different parts of the city.
Another challenge would be the aging infrastructure that we have underground. We have a water treatment plant that opened in 1897. We’ve been studying how to proceed. We have approval from the [Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission]. They have approved a rate case, and we’ve raised rates to get the money to build a new water treatment plant.
But from the time we first went to the state for approval at an estimate of $180 million, it’s now a lot more. Inflation is certainly a factor. The cost of borrowing money has risen significantly. We’ve had to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to address a dramatic need while making it as affordable as possible.
Do you have an update on the 420 Main project?
The construction drawings are all complete. The developer [CRG] has the bids back. What’s challenged this project has been inflation and the timing of all this. Interest rates have gone up dramatically, which drives their cost of funds, which means they can borrow less or there’s just greater risk for them financially. But they’re on a good path to getting that figured out.
Our development agreement with the developer required they commence construction by Dec. 15 and they exercise an option on a piece of land by Jan. 15. At the redevelopment commission meeting on Dec. 5, the commission, at the mutual request of the city and the developer, amended the development agreement to extend the deadline to commence construction until May 15, 2024, with three 30-day options to extend further.
The developer has agreed to general terms of their private sector financing with a regional lender. The developer and the lender are now working through their respective due diligence so that construction financing can be closed sometime in early 2024. We are very confident the ongoing cooperation between the city and CRG will produce a high-quality mixed-use development that will be yet another catalyst for our downtown.
I fully anticipate that sometime in the first half, if not the first quarter of next year, ground will be broken on that project. So that will be about 150 apartments and retail or restaurants that will face Main St. and a park at the corner of 4th and Main. It’s a really handsome design. We already have the bonding authority to proceed with the underground garage.
Where does the Roberts Park project stand?
We broke ground on Nov. 29 on the connector road and new entrance. We felt like we had to build the infrastructure of the park before we could start building any other amenities. The new connector road, which will come off of Vann Avenue in front of those businesses on the Lloyd Expressway, will wind through the park. That and the new entrance to the park on Boeke Road will be complete sometime in August or September of 2024.
Then we may break ground or start doing site work this year on a new playground that will go in that same general area. The pickleball courts are practically complete. The surfaces still need to be painted or treated. But we’ve passed the weather window. They need so many consecutive days of temperatures, about 50 or 55. So those will be complete in the spring. And we have tournaments scheduled beginning in May.
A lot’s happening in Roberts Park. We’re super excited. This starts the vision we laid out where we have connected green space from Morgan Avenue to the north to Lincoln Avenue to the south with that pedestrian crosswalk over the Lloyd Expressway. We also broke ground on Nov. 28 on a new dog park that will go on the south side of the expressway in that same area.
What advice do you have for Mayor-elect Stephanie Terry?
We’ve had two lengthy transition meetings already. We’ve provided her with a lengthy transition document, which details what each department does, an [organizational] chart for every department, and an outline of each department’s key initiatives.
One of the greatest challenges of a job like this is time management. Everyone’s going to want to get in front of her. I’d say take it a day at a time. There are a lot of projects going on, and she’ll be able to cut the ribbon for them the first half of the year or even later in the year.
The other thing is I would encourage her to build a good team. Based on our discussions, she’s going about this in a very thoughtful manner. I have every reason to believe she’ll be successful. My job over the next month is to make sure she has all the information she needs to be as successful as she can.
Why did you take the CEO position at Evansville Regional Economic Partnership?
When I announced I wasn’t going to seek a fourth term, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I had thought about it, but nothing was jumping out at me.
Tara Barney, the current CEO, is part of our monthly one-on-one meetings. [She] asked me [what I was going to do]. I said, “I don’t know.” She said, “I have an idea. I want to retire about the time you’re done being mayor.” So over the course of many weeks, we started having those discussions. I’m on the E-REP board, given my position here in the city. I had a lot of conversations with people.
The more I thought about it, what a natural transition. I’ll get to continue to work on all the fun, exciting projects for the region. I’ll get to help continue promoting the region. It seemed like a natural extension. My wife puts it this way, it’s going to be like being mayor, but without the potholes and the snow plows.
I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve had a lot of encouragement from the business community. We have nearly 1,400 members who are a part of E-REP. It’s a good next step that will allow me to work side by side with Mayor-elect Terry and continue the progress that has begun.
What are your short-term and long-term goals at E-REP?
Short-term goals are building relationships that I don’t already have. I have a lot of really strong relationships with mayors in the region. I need to expand that to county commissioners and county council members in our region as they are significant partners in the work that E-REP does.
That doesn’t happen with one meeting or two meetings. But that’s a commitment on my part by being out of the office on Main Street in downtown Evansville and in the courthouses or in the coffee shops—wherever folks want to meet—to make sure that we build those relationships and so I can be an advocate for them and their goals.
Another short-term goal is to make sure policymakers in Indianapolis, and to some degree Washington, understand the business community is still aligned with local government, so we can still pursue READI grant dollars or other funding mechanisms that might be available.
My long-term goal is to continue to work on making the greater Evansville region a desirable destination for people to live, work and play. We want to grow our population. We want to make sure our workforce has higher salaries and benefits. We want to improve health outcomes. We want to reduce poverty.
All of those are regional initiatives that E-REP helps drive. You don’t get to a point where you’re done. You continue to work on them as you get to certain levels and goals or as you achieve certain goals. That’s certainly part of the long-term strategy.