The Elkhart TRUTH – LOCAL BUSINESS: ELKHART COUNTY’S NORTHWEST GATEWAY PLAN CLOSER TO BECOMING A REALITYPublished: Sunday, August 14, 2011By Josh Weinhold, Reporter Motorists entering Elkhart County’s northwest side could soon be greeted by a village.”The Village” is the working title for major proposed development in the county’s so-called Northwest Gateway, the entrance into Elkhart from St. Joseph County at the corner of Old U.S. 20 and Ash Road.An effort to significantly improve an area county planning officials have called an eyesore, the project would include major changes to the makeup of Old U.S. 20 and aims to draw retail, residential and other destination sites to the land on either side of the road.Storrow Kinsella Associates, the Indianapolis consulting firm hired by the county last year to design the development, presented its initial plans to the gateway steering committee and county redevelopment commission last week. Now, county officials must make a series of decisions regarding how exactly they want the gateway to look – from the makeup of the road to the type of intersections to how accessible the area should be to pedestrians and bicyclists.Complicating matters are plans by St. Joseph County to overhaul the Ash/Old U.S. 20 intersection, which falls […]