Our 2024 Contract has been renewed! We will be in person twice this year and will continue to assist small scale developers and community builders with their small scale development needs.

See below for details:

South Bend is shining! You can find all the resources here at Build South Bend.

Here is the story! Back in 2016, Mike Keen (one of our founders!) rallied the community to bring the Incremental Development Alliance to South Bend to review ways to make small scale development work. This kicked off a series of efforts including: zoning, establishing incentive programs, pre approved plans and so much more.

Over the years, the South Bend Small Developer ecosystem has built and continues to meet on a monthly basis with the goal to support one another and discuss important topics to help breed success in their projects.

Since 2016, there have been dozens of renovation projects of residential, mixed use and commercial and several infill houses that are eco friendly!

In 2020 and 2021, Jim Kumon, Mike and Monte worked with the City of South Bend on the “Build South Bend” website to get all resources all in one. This includes Jim’s “pre approved plan” design, too! You can learn more about it here.

In 2022, Bernice, Monte, Jim and Mike joined forces to expand our efforts to the local community to build the ecosystem. We hosted a long weekend of events: happy hour, one on one meetings with small scale developers, banks and potential champions and a brunch meeting where we discussed financing and deal structure. You can read about the 2022 work here in Strong Towns!

2023 was a banner year for our efforts - with one visit totaling over 30 million dollars worth of work happening in the City! Our workshops included financing, designing on a dime, and more.

2024 kicked off with a big hit - a packed house happy hour and a sold out workshop on finance and design with Jim Kumon and Bernice Radle. Monte, Bernice and Jim will be in town on October 17 / 18 / 19.

We are excited to be working with the City of South Bend and its community!