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A new engineering design center from New Jersey-based Butler International, a contractor for United Technologies' Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., will start up in January 2005 with 40 employees at Purdue Research Park (PRP), in a section of the 111,000-sq.-ft. (10,312-sq.-m.) warehouse (center) left vacant by Whirlpool Corp. in September 2001. Butler's West Lafayette operation could grow to as many as 200 employees by the end of the year. A full 58 of PRP's 104 businesses are high-tech endeavors. And its continuing success as the state's first certified technology park (CTP) holds promise for other new CTPs in Evansville, Kokomo, Terre Haute, Crawfordsville and the counties of Martin, Greene and Daviess, surrounding the Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center southwest of Bloomington.

conomic development and corporate project activity took center stage in the 2004 Indiana gubernatorial race. But companies continued to take office ... and plant ... and warehouse ... in Indiana, regardless of who was gunning for the Governor's mansion.
      Like teeth in a gear, Indiana's industrial corridors continue to produce the energy needed for a state economy. The industrial backbone stretching from Lake Michigan to the Ohio River is further strengthened by an increasingly interconnected set of university and economic development resources. Indiana's clusters, led by the famed medical device sector in Warsaw, only continue to increase in number and durability. But being at the hinge of the North-South automotive corridor still packs the biggest economic punch, from Fort Wayne to Princeton,

BREAKING NEWS: Indy Joins Ft. Wayne as Recipient of GM Investment      Scarcely a fortnight after General Motors committed to a $175-million investment in Fort Wayne, GM has gone once again to the Indiana well, this time with a $98-million investment in equipment, machinery and tools at its Indianapolis Metal Center.      "By upgrading aging equipment with a new progressive press and weld assembly systems, we will improve the plant's flexibility and be able to produce higher quality components more efficiently," said Jim De Luca, manufacturing manager for GM North American Manufacturing, on Feb. 7. The Indianapolis Metal Center opened in 1930 and employs approximately 1,990 people. The plant produces major automotive metal stampings and fabricated parts, and had already received some $72 million worth of weld assembly cells and tools since December 2002.       As noted in Site Selection's North American Automotive Industry Review GM is doing its share for the U.S. manufacturing economy. The company has invested more than $20 billion in its U.S. operations during the last five years.

Columbia City to New Albany.
      In 2003 and 2004, Indiana was still middle of the pack in the U.S. when it came to corporate real estate executives' evaluations of its business climate, finishing in 26th place two years running in Site Selection's annual business climate survey. The state was 31st in 2002. Meanwhile, the Pacific Research Institute's economic freedom index has Indiana in 14th place in the nation, up from No. 22 in 1999. Solid trend indicators for the state economy, right?
      Not according to newly elected Gov. Mitch Daniels, whose campaign made the state's industrial economy its centerpiece by casting aspersions on state project data and promising a wholesale abolition of the state's department of commerce. Actually, the Indiana Economic Development Corp., created in 2003 by the General Assembly, will assume that department's responsibilities on July 1, 2005, according to the original law. Daniels' administration reportedly wants to bump up that timetable.
      Meanwhile, the Indiana Chamber of Commerce's "2004 Economic Vision 2010 Report Card," which measures Indiana's economic performance against competing states and nations, gives the state a "C" grade, citing stagnation when it comes to work force development, innovation and venture capital germination. Officials from the Chamber have also noted that closing the state's own budget gaps will take either 12-percent economic growth or spending cuts of 9 percent.
      Here's a look at Indiana industrial development beyond the political scrum.