Terre Haute’s youngest mayor aims to build on city’s growth
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowNovember’s municipal elections brought a mix of new and old leadership to mayoral offices across the state, including a history-making move in Terre Haute. Brandon Sakbun, a Terre Haute native and former U.S. Army Ranger, is the youngest person ever elected to lead the city at age 27.
The son of immigrants, Mayor-elect Sakbun said it was his parents who instilled the concept of public service and giving back to the community, and that was key to his decision to run for mayor.
Sakbun talked about the election and his plans for Terre Haute in an interview on Inside INdiana Business with Gerry Dick.
“I’m a firm believer that Terre Haute is unique,” he said. “Its future is riverfront downtown development. It’s working through advanced manufacturing, diversifying the job market. We have all the tools to just launch on exponential growth here in Terre Haute, Indiana.”
Sakbun cited the four higher education institutions in Terre Haute—Indiana State University, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Ivy Tech Community College, and Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College—as being key to that growth.
The manufacturing piece comes as Oregon-based Entek builds a $1.5 billion electric vehicle battery component manufacturing facility in Terre Haute that aims to bring 650 jobs to the city. But Sakbun said the growth in economic development is about more than just jobs and wages they bring.
“You have to look at housing. You have to look at your education,” he said. “You have to look at neighborhood development, residential homes just as much as you look at commercial development. So packaging that all together is how you really get aggressive. You know, we want to sell the community of Terre Haute.”
Riverfront development is also a big piece of Sakbun’s plans as mayor. He said the city will come up with a comprehensive master plan in 2024 to map out what the city’s relationship to the Wabash River will look like in the next 10-15 years.
“We’re going to lay the groundwork not just for my administration, but multiple mayors down the road and see 15-25 years of positive development,” he said. To me that’s mixed use, mixed income…and we’re going to make it happen on Wabash River.”