By Lacey Watt
GREENFIELD — Two road projects will provide more access from Opportunity Parkway and 300 N in the upcoming years.
At Greenfield’s Redevelopment Commission last week, the board approved an economic development agreement between them and Shear GF1, LLC, which would include two projects — “the Reconstruction Project” and “the Construction Project.”
Gregg Morelock, city attorney, said at the RDC meeting that with Opportunity Parkway, three sections were built with the fourth one being started but sunk due to not being properly planned. Morelock said at the meeting they have instituted litigation for the failed construction of phase four.
The reconstruction project would be a rebuild of phase four, which is the east/west portion of Opportunity Parkway while the construction project would be completely new construction of a stretch of road off of 300 N. This would help service BWI Group and properties to the west.
In this agreement, the developer, Shear, would be solely responsible for the construction of the two road projects, which is currently planned to be completed by Dec. 31, 2024.
Morelock also said that once the roads are built, inspected, accepted and dedicated, they would have to purchase them, which would follow their normal real estate acquisition statute requiring two appraisals and no more than the average of those two. The development agreement stated that the cost shall not exceed $4 million.
Jason Koch, city engineer, said that the $4 million has already been budgeted into the five-year plan.
“We have a pot of money that can be used for public infrastructure dollars and that’s what were doing in this case,” Koch said. “We’re building some new roads within our business park to let this new business come to town and have access.”
The economic development agreement for the road projects went before the redevelopment commission last week and passed unanimously. It then went before the Board of Works on Tuesday morning, where it also passed unanimously.
Once the two projects consisting are completed by the end of 2024, Shear has plans to pursue the development of approximately 65 acres located at the southeast corner of Fortville Pike and CR East 300 N.
The amended project plan went before the plan commission Monday night discussing details of the project, which would be located in Progress Park. The building would be built for distribution purposes.
The proposed building would be 544,077 square feet with a 400,680 square-foot building for future expansion that would have to go to the board for future approval. It would have approximately 150 employees with 144 on the largest shift.
Parking available would have 170 spaces on the east side with loading and delivery areas on the west side of the property for 34 truck docks and 60 trailer parking spaces. The access points to the facility would be the entrance off of 300 N and Opportunity Parkway off of the east side.
Larry Siegler from Peterson Company representing Shear at the plan commission meeting said that he signed a confidentiality agreement for what is called “Project Huskies,” which is the company that would be occupying the building. Siegler said that the company looked at 17 different sites but chose Greenfield because of the sense of community.
“That really, really won the day. These guys do not want to be in an industrial park,” Siegler said. “They want to be in a community…”
Siegler said that this company would bring 150 new jobs to the community and, with 10,000 square feet of the building being office space, many of the jobs would be professional office jobs.
Siegler also assured that this is not another empty warehouse that is seen in other parks.
The staff recommended approval of the proposed project with some conditions, such as mounding and fencing along the west property line and that the temporary gravel drive be paved at the time of the development.
With that, the plan commission motioned to approve the proposed project with the staff conditions, and it passed unanimously.
