McCORDSVILLE — Amendments to a planned unit development (PUD) for adding three buildings along a stretch of CR 600W were approved by the McCordsville Town Council during Tuesday night’s meeting at the town hall.
Brian Cross with Civil Site Group spoke about the amendments to the PUD, and one change would be to add financial institutions to the list of permitted uses for the buildings that sit on the approximately 5.5 acres just south of Leo’s Market and Eatery.
According to the conceptual site plan as presented at the meeting, there will be three lots with three commercial buildings. On the middle lot, or Lot 4, there will be a financial institution on the north side of the building.
Other permitted uses for the real estate include bakery, coffee shop, daycare, doggy daycare, retail — not including bargain retail — and others.
Adding to the list of prohibited uses would be bargain retail. Prohibited uses will continue to include automotive sales, carwash, firearm sales, firework sales, nightclub, tattoo and/or piercing parlor and more.
McCordsville Town Council member Larry Longman addressed that in the amendments he did not want to see minimum landscaping standards to be reduced, which would be taking a 10-foot landscape median and reducing it to 5 feet.
“When you look at a common integrated center, when you’re trying to drive through the parking areas, green space between parking areas to reduce impervious area is an advantage, but at the same time you want to be able to have that common integrated center to give you enough parking to meet those requirements,” Cross said.
Another amendment or change to the PUD would be cutting the setback on the south side of the property line from 50 feet to 30 feet.
Cross was also present at the plan commission meeting in September to speak on the amendments before they came to the town council. Then, he said that this conceptual site plan also will only have one main entry and exit point located off of 600W.
While last night’s reading of the PUD was a first reading, the petitioner’s asked if the council would suspend their rules and vote on the amendments rather than wait another month because of a month delay in the process.
Dave Crabnes, who has been working with the financial institution that would occupy the middle building, said that he has a signed letter of intent and that the finalization of the lease is dependent on approval from the board.
“As anybody knows, it is very hard to negotiate the cost of construction … so I would appreciate it if you guys would work with us so I can get this lease signed and move forward,” Crabnes said. “We’re going to do a good property and meet the community’s needs.”
McCordsville Town Council president Greg Brewer asked about the intentions of the other buildings as far as tenants.
Crabnes was said that there was work with a couple national tenants and they have received some letter of intents this past week but did not want to mention any names. Crabnes said that layout is conceptual, so it could change in the future.
Cross said that with the setback and permitted uses added, they could leave the spacing between the buildings as the 10-foot median instead of the reduced 5 feet.
With that, the council suspended the rules and passed the ordinance amending the zoning code for the town in order to revise the Villages at Brookside PUD on first and second reading, 5-0.
