In this week's installment of Ask The Mayor, Terre Haute Mayor Brandon Sakbun discusses housing development, plans for the Indiana Theatre, a potential sale of the Terre Haute Casino Resort, sewer and stormwater rates, and education. Listen to the full conversation by clicking on the play button above or read some of the questions and answers below. A portion of this segment airs on WFIU.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Baumgarth: About a month ago, there was a State of the City event, and you spoke a lot about population growth. What's primarily driving that?
Sakbun: I think a large part is our employers. Many of them have made the decision to expand here in Terre Haute, Indiana. Specific examples include GE Aviation, GATX, Saturn Pet Care, Boulder Industries, Taghleef as well.
But I think what that also is ia testament to some of the work that we're doing in the public sector space. We're focused on getting more homes on the market so families who are already here can make the decision to right-size and downsize or go up in size. We're also focused on ensuring that new families who want to come to a growing community have a place to rent or own.
The median age of a homebuyer in the United States continues to increase, and that's a problem. This national housing crisis that we find ourselves in as a nation isn't going to be solved just by local government. But what we are going to do at local government is find concrete solutions to increase our housing stock, update it and provide homes for Hoosier families.
Baumgarth: What's the biggest obstacle to continuing that growth? It sounds like you've alluded to the housing market.
Sakbun: Housing is definitely a challenge. I wouldn't necessarily rank these as one, two and three, but I'd put them as a top-three priority.
Housing, for sure, as we just discussed, but also public education. A number of our school buildings are in dire need of improvements, and I know the school corporation is currently exploring a consolidation plan and looking to the county for financial support.
And then we've got employment. Workforce development is always difficult. Not everyone goes to college, and we need to make sure Hoosiers who want a job right after high school—or didn't finish high school and need to go back—have those opportunities.
There is opportunity here in the city of Terre Haute, and we just need to continue to work collaboratively together to ensure that our employers have employees, our homes are filled and we're continuing to build a safer and stronger community.
Baumgarth: You highlighted declines in crime during the State of the City. What do you attribute that improvement to?
Sakbun: We've put a lot more officers on the street through a series of task forces. But what we've also done is not just increase officers in terms of crime fighting, but in terms of community presence, ensuring they're involved in community groups across the city.
We do have a social worker program to help address challenges like homelessness, which is another huge crisis in the United States and state of Indiana.
From a public safety perspective, yes, we have made some major changes. But crime's difficult. You want to get it as low as zero as possible. You cannot be on every block, on every corner at the same time. But what you can do is create a proactive police department that is doing its best to assure the community that this is a safe place to live, work and play.
Baumgarth: Terre Haute is receiving $1.575 million from the Indiana Finance Authority for housing development. What specifically is that money going to pay for?
Sakbun: That's a project that we're working with the state on to do another neighborhood in North Terre Haute and hopefully bring an additional 80 to 130 homes online.
The state offers a low-interest loan to builders to pay for the infrastructure, which is one of the leading cost drivers when it comes to housing: right-of-way acquisition, utilities like Duke Energy, Indiana American Water and CenterPoint.
We use this program to help lower that barrier to entry.
Baumgarth: Is there a particular price point that development is targeting?
Sakbun: That specific project is in that $200,000 to $275,000 range. We've seen a lot of success at the $140,000 to $200,000 range, ample success at $300,000 and up, but we really want to capture that middle market of $200,000 to $300,000 as well.
Housing's difficult. I actually try not to use the word "affordable housing" because it's very subjective to many Hoosier families. Instead, I say "attainable housing."
Local government in Indiana is not allowed to set rent prices or housing prices. The city of Terre Haute is kind of hamstrung in dealing with rising interest rates, tariffs and inflation that just make it more costly to build.
One way to tackle this when it comes to recruiting companies or working with companies in town to expand is focusing the conversation around median wage and what current and future jobs are going to look like in terms of pay, to hopefully address the wage portion of the conversation as well.
Baumgarth: The Arts Collaborative Hub at the Indiana Theatre is getting $2 million for a roughly $4.2 million project. Why is that an important investment for Terre Haute?
Sakbun: Downtown theaters for decades were neglected. Gone were the days of traditional downtown theaters with plays and movies, and a lot of people want to see that stuff back in communities, myself included.
The Capital Improvement Board was gifted a theater to prevent it from becoming a vape shop, and thankfully we received that gift from a local businessman, Greg Gibson.
To pay for the renovation, it's always been a long-standing equation of, "How are we going to get there?" Thankfully, through the READI 2.0 Arts and Culture Program, we were able to get this started. We're going to do a Phase One renovation.
Baumgarth: What should residents expect to see from a finished Arts Collaborative Hub?
Sakbun: They should expect to see some construction next year, and then after construction starts, probably 12 months. Our goal is to get going next summer in 2027 and get something open by the middle of 2028.
Baumgarth: More broadly, where do you see the redevelopment of downtown Terre Haute right now?
Sakbun: I see it as in progress. Obviously, we have a hotel that's going to start construction this calendar year. Another hotel is attempting to get some redevelopment tax credits. Indiana State continues to grow, and we're working with the state legislature on projects.
There's some private-sector investment coming in as well, soon to be announced on 12th and Wabash. There's a lot in the pipeline. There's a lot happening on its own organically.
We just awarded a grant through Thrive West Central for some more downtown housing, mixed-use at an old office building at Fifth and Cherry. There are definitely programs out there and folks willing to take a business risk on the city of Terre Haute.
Baumgarth: Churchill Downs is looking to sell the Terre Haute Casino Resort. Were you surprised by that announcement?
Sakbun: I was not, because Churchill Downs for several months now has been very direct that they want to offload their regional casinos.
What is interesting is they want to do it as one package, which does make it difficult for us because we are performing incredibly well, and we've had a number of suitors contact them about just selling ours.
What a lot of folks need to realize is casinos are governed at the state level by the Gaming Commission, and there are clear state laws that mandate how much is given to local government through taxes or to foundations.
We're doing really well financially because of the casino with some of our quality-of-life projects. That's funding that we now have that we didn't have before.
We expect them to go through that process. It's going to be a lengthy timeline, and I can't imagine it happens anytime soon. But what I can imagine is the city will work with whomever takes ownership to continue to build a safer, stronger, smarter Terre Haute that works for the people and focuses on problems like affordability and housing.
Baumgarth: One of those commitments is the millions pledged to the Vigo County schools. Is there any concern a potential sale could affect that?
Sakbun: No concern on my end based on state code and the local developer agreement that the foundation has with the operator of any casino operator that decides to purchase the Terre Haute Casino Resort.
Baumgarth: With a new owner potentially coming in, is there anything you'd be looking for from that partnership outside of that pledge?
Sakbun: Definitely. We'll have conversations about additional quality-of-life projects that they can do within their area or around the city of Terre Haute, and look forward to seeing continued commitments to the school corporation.
Baumgarth: The city is proposing using surplus 2025 funding to reduce an upcoming sewer and stormwater rate increase. How much would that save the average household?
Sakbun: The proposed residential stormwater fee started at $7 a month, and because we've been so diligent with our spending the last three years—2024, 2025 and 2026—there's a series of projects that we will do in-house, and that lowered that fee from $7 to $3. That's a substantial decrease.
Additionally, using a general obligation bond strategy, we were able to limit the increase in 2030 to 10 percent.
If you do the math, the last sewage rate increase was in 2019. The next proposed one is in 2030 at 10 percent, so it comes out to less than a percent a year, which is a metric that I really push our sanitary commission and engineering team on.
Baumgarth: Why is a rate increase necessary in the first place?
Sakbun: Because we are mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency to follow what's called a long-term control plan.
Basically, sewer systems across America are very old, and the Clean Water Act was passed decades ago.
I'm going to be very direct here: Terre Haute's 30 years behind. This is something we should have done a long time ago, and we are mandated to get going on it, and that's what we're doing.
Baumgarth: You recently stepped away for your annual National Guard training. How do you balance your military responsibilities with serving as mayor of Terre Haute?
Sakbun: It's difficult to balance the military, a growing family, two kids under two and the mayor's office. This is some of the challenge with wanting to serve your community at such a young age.
But we worked through it, my wife and I. There are definitely challenging days. Some are easier than others, but I've got a very strong support system with my family, my wife's family and my wife herself, and we've been able to make it work this far.
Baumgarth: In closing, what issue facing Terre Haute right now do you think isn't getting enough attention?
Sakbun: I would have to say education. We've got to find a way to further support our schools.
A number of our buildings are older than 50 years old, and it's very hard to maintain what we have, let alone get ahead. There's a good conversation going on about right-sizing.
Keep in mind, parents are having fewer kids. The birth rate's fallen in the last two decades, so if there are fewer kids, there are fewer kids in the classroom, which means there are fewer employees for employers.
The state of Indiana and, frankly, the United States of America need to wake up and realize unless we do something immediately—like have a direct impact on education and childcare, which are two limiting factors for young parents exploring how many kids they want to have—we're going to see problems.
Insurance is way too expensive. Childcare is way too expensive. You can't raise more than one to two kids on a one-salary household like you could in 1990 or 1980.
It's not because young people are spending $5 at Starbucks. This is happening because wage growth has been challenging over the last couple of decades. We did see a big increase post-COVID, but it doesn't make up for the fact that costs have continued to go up.
Owning a home is continuing to become more impossible in the United States of America. Childcare is out of reach for most Hoosier families, and public education continues to take a beatdown. That's not America first, if you ask me.
