HANCOCK COUNTY — Buildings planned along the Mt. Comfort Corridor with a square-footage under six digits are rare, but very needed, officials say.
A company called PATCH SBI 2 LLC plans to contribute toward that demand with a structure a little more than 24,000 square feet on about 2.6 acres at 7121 W. County Road 200N. The site — a fraction of the size of other recent projects announced along and near the corridor — is near operations for Landsberg Orora, Amazon and Ferguson Construction Company.
PATCH SBI 2 is a combination of Westfield-based Patch Development, a commercial real estate development company; and Indianapolis-based Systems Builders, a general contractor.
The building, which is planned to be constructed with masonry and architectural metal, is speculative, meaning an occupant has yet to be identified.
“We feel like having a building ready and available allows us to go attract companies to come here,” Andrew Greenwood of Patch Development told the Hancock County Council earlier this month.
The council unanimously approved a 10-year real property tax abatement for the project on introduction and will vote whether to confirm it next month. If confirmed, the building would have a full tax break in its first year before taxes would gradually phase in over the years that follow.
Randy Sorrell, executive director of the Hancock Economic Development Council, said the county lacks an inventory of smaller buildings for businesses.
“The young startups — sometimes this would be their first-space-outside-of-the-garage kind of thing,” he said.
Sorrell added smaller buildings would be a draw for businesses growing too big for Idea Co-Op, NineStar Connect’s co-working and incubator space at 2331 E. 600N.
“When it hatches, it’s got to go somewhere; it’s got to leave the nest, and we don’t have that landing spot,” Sorrell said.
Bill Bolander, a county council member, agreed.
“There’s a lot of smart people out there with good ideas, but they got to have a place to go once they get going,” he said.
Sorrell recalled that the county lost out on an opportunity last year from a business looking to settle locally after its 15,000-square foot need couldn’t be met.
“Didn’t have it anywhere,” Sorrell said.
He added it wasn’t possible at the multitude of other speculative buildings planned along and near the Mt. Comfort Corridor, most of which are in the hundreds of thousands of square feet.
“If you need 515,000 square feet, you’re not going to take 500 and give somebody else 15,” Sorrell said.
The parcel PATCH SBI 2 wants to develop is landlocked by 700W to its east, a looping 200N to its west and north, and Ferguson Construction to its south. Mary Noe, a county council member, noted there likely isn’t much else that could be done there outside of PATCH SBI 2’s intentions.
“I think this property that you’re looking at is unique in size and it’s not going to have a lot of opportunity for different-sized buildings,” she said. “This is probably the best suit for that particular parcel, due to the size.”
While rare, smaller speculative projects aren’t unheard of for the Mt. Comfort Corridor. Indianapolis-based Commercial Team Construction is nearing completion on a 28,000-square foot building in Alliance Interstate Park southwest of the PATCH SBI 2 site. Joel Fritz, president and founder of the company, told the Daily Reporter that half of the building is already leased and that the other half is under review by a tenant. The company has also started construction on a second building, which will be 31,500 square feet.
