INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – The parkland surrounding Indiana’s towering dunes was intended to keep industry away from a geological marvel molded over thousands of years at the southern tip of Lake Michigan.
Yet five years after a politically connected developer suggested officials should hire a company to rehabilitate a dilapidated beachfront pavilion at the popular tourist destination, the small construction project has ballooned into a decades-long privatization deal with the state. It includes two beachfront restaurants, a rooftop bar, a glass-walled banquet hall promising “the best view in Indiana” – and there is potential for even more development.
What’s more, the company ultimately picked to do the job was co-founded by Chuck Williams, the developer who pitched the initial idea. Williams, a regional chairman of the state Republican Party, worked behind the scenes for over a year with the administrations of two GOP governors, shaping and expanding the plans. He faced competition from just one other company – a bid that was deemed “good” though not as profitable.
“On its face, it looks suspicious,” Antony Page, vice dean of the Indiana University law school in Indianapolis, said of the deal by Williams’ Pavilion Partners. “A big Republican supporter gets a potentially very lucrative contract?”
Deb Butterfield, a spokeswoman for Pavilion Partners, called the effort “a showcase project” for Indiana that would “put an exclamation point on what a beautiful asset this is.”