GREENE CO. – With a smile on his face, Tom Wininger stands in the dining room of a paired ranch home in the new Westcott Paired Lifestyle Homes neighborhood greeting visitors as they walk around, admiring the modern residence.
Plastic covers the brand-new flooring in some of the rooms of this pristine house nestled in this modern Greene County neighborhood less than a minute from WestGate@Crane Technology Park. Smithville Fiber’s fastest fiber internet and advanced home features – such as a smart thermostat you can use to lower the temperature before you get home on a hot summer day and door locks controlled by an app on your phone – make the neighborhood an ideal spot for young professionals moving to the Indiana Uplands region to start their careers.
Wininger is the president of Wininger Construction. Earlier this year, the company received a $900,000 Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative (READI) grant to build water and sewer infrastructure for the Westcott neighborhood.
He said the READI grant funding allowed him to build a neighborhood where young professionals will achieve what many consider the American Dream: Owning their first home.
The paired ranch and townhomes have three bedrooms and at least two bathrooms. The plan is to build 30 homes over three phases, including a stand-alone ranch home in the first phase. There are currently seven homes for sale. Another seven are leased to young professionals coming to work in the technology park and at the new microelectronics campus WestGate One. Last November, Governor Eric Holcomb, and Secretary of Commerce Brad Chambers joined local officials and business executives in Odon, Indiana, to break ground on the new microelectronics campus that will power the growth of Indiana’s semiconductor industry. The $84 million development, which has already attracted four semiconductor companies to the state, will leverage academic, corporate, and defense partners to speed the re-shoring of semiconductor research and manufacturing in the U.S.
Building neighborhoods from the ground up is not a new venture for Wininger Construction, which has been in the business of building neighborhoods and modern commercial buildings for over 80 years in Monroe County. Now Wininger hopes his company can further contribute to the region’s success by expanding housing opportunities for new Uplanders coming to work at the technology park and microelectronics campus.
“Many young people are coming to the region,” he said. “It will be fun to keep this momentum going.”
By Suzannah Couch Regional Opportunity Inc.
