McCORDSVILLE — A developer wants to bring buildings for logistics and warehousing purposes to McCordsville’s south side in a plan that calls for rezoning properties and annexing others into town.
Indianapolis-based Strategic Capital Partners is considering two to three structures west of Mt. Comfort Road and north of County Road 500N.
John Cumming, senior vice president of development for Strategic Capital Partners, said the sizes of the buildings remain to be determined.
“We’re still working on a master plan and assembling various properties, which would dictate the size of the buildings,” Cumming said.
So far, the developments would be speculative, meaning without occupants yet secured.
“I would love to attract a build-to-suit as well, but our plan would be to go speculative if we’re not able to,” Cumming said.
It would be the first project in Hancock County for Strategic Capital Partners, which has been involved in industrial, office, multi-family and student housing developments in several states since launching in 2005.
“Certainly the access to I-70, a major distribution route, is attractive,” Cumming said. “Hancock County and the town of McCordsville have done a nice job in terms of attracting businesses. I think there’s a very competitive labor story in the area, and there’s a lot of demand out there, and we’re trying to diversify what we have to offer in the Indianapolis market.”
Brian Tuohy, a lawyer with Indianapolis-based Tuohy Bailey & Moore representing Strategic Capital Partners, told McCordsville Town Council members recently that the builder has agreements with the owners of about 150 acres of the nearly 160 making up the site and is pursuing arrangements with the owners of the remaining acreage.
The eastern part of the site, along Mt. Comfort Road, is already part of McCordsville and is made up of mostly farmland with some residences. To construct its buildings, Strategic Capital Partners would need to request that the land it gets be rezoned from its residential and neighborhood commercial designations to an industrial one. Such a request would be vetted by the town’s plan commission and considered by the town council.
Tuohy said the builder would seek to annex what it gets of the western portion of the site, also mostly farmland and some residences, into McCordsville.
McCordsville Town Council member Tom Strayer noted with the site being made up of different property owners and zoning classifications, and some of it being in town and some of it out, much would need to align in order to accomplish a uniformity.
“When we do an annexation or development, I am not for having small cutouts within the development that aren’t of the same use,” he told the Daily Reporter.
Tuohy also said the company would work with the town on extending a planned future road called Aurora Way west from Mt. Comfort Road. Plans are already underway to stretch it east from the thoroughfare for other industrial developments in the area.
Ten-foot-wide walking paths along Mt. Comfort Road and County Road 500N would be part of Strategic Capital Partners’ development as well.
If all goes according to plan, work would start in fall 2022 with occupancy for the first building ready in fall to late 2023, Tuohy said.
