KENDALLVILLE â âHave you seen what theyâve done?â
âThereâs so much there.â âItâs alive and itâs expanding and its changing.â âItâs an awesome city to visit.â
Those are the kind of things Kendallville business owners and city leaders want people to say about their downtown in the future.
Theyâre hoping a new grant opportunity may help serve as a springboard to get them on the way.
The city is looking to move forward with seeking a $2 million grant that would not only help fix up downtown buildings but also establish historic preservation guidelines in the downtown.
KENDALLVILLE â Need a place to sit, relax, eat your lunch or hang out in the downtown?
The cityâs trying to help you out, with plans for a new pocket park going public this week as organizers are starting to solicit donations to make the idea a reality.
Mayor Suzanne Handshoe and other city leaders have been talking excitedly for months about the prospect of turning the once-eyesore service station property at the southwest corner of Main and Rush streets into a new finely decorated gathering space for the downtown.
Kendallville worked through a long process in the courts to condemn and usurp ownership of the property at 302 S. Main St., located opposite City Hall on the south side of West Rush Street, which had been a long-vacant service station.
KENDALLVILLE â If youâre looking to get out of the house and do something this year, two events are planning to return to Main Street this fall.
The Kendallville Car Show and Food Truck Friday are being scheduled for September and October, respectively, in a hopeful return to outdoor activities following a year of cancellations throughout 2020.
The Board of Works and Public Safety reviewed and approved street closures for the events, which will be coming up in a couple months.
The annual car show is scheduled to come up first, taking place on Saturday, Sept. 11.
Organizers are expecting 350 vehicles or more, as well as potentially upward of 1,000 visitors to the free downtown event. The car show will also hopefully feature some food vendors and live music as it has in years past.
KENDALLVILLE â Postponed, but not canceled.
Kendallvilleâs Fairy, Gnome and Troll Festival is coming back for its second romp through the mystical, magical and fantastical.
The second annual festival â well, almost annual considering everything that happened in 2020 â will be back in downtown Kendallville on Saturday, Aug. 14 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The Kendallville Area Chamber of Commerce sent out the announcement Tuesday afternoon that the wildly popular, family friendly event will return just a little later than its normal May run date.
The fairy festival was a new invention in 2019, piggy-backing off a downtown âfairy doorâ program that was launched in Kendallville. The small, decorative doors were mounted at businesses around the city with QR codes that can be scanned to take you to a website with a little story about a fairy family living at that location.
Police pursuit ends in exchange of gunfire
KENDALLVILLE â A traffic stop in Fort Wayne led to a pursuit and ended with gunshots fired between police and a LaOtto man just outside the Johnson Mobile Home Park off Waits Road early Thursday morning.
The suspect, Justin R. Weikel, 40, was transported to an area hospital, according to Indiana State Police Public Information Officer Brian Walker. Weikelâs condition was listed as stable as of 7:55 a.m.
Initial reports indicated Weikel had been shot, but police later said that might not be the case. He was the lone occupant of his vehicle.
No officers or civilians were injured, but an unoccupied DeKalb County Sheriffâs Department vehicle was struck with gunfire.