A site map of the facility proposed by Patch Development.
A new mixed-use commercial and industrial development advanced through an initial meeting with the McCordsville Architectural Review Committee Tuesday evening to receive feedback before going to the plan commission for a public hearing.
Petitioner Patch Development is seeking to rezone the property at the corner of Mt. Comfort Road and CR 500N from its current designation as vacant agricultural land to a mixed-use combination of commercial and industrial land. The proposed facility would provide commercial space, offices and warehouses for businesses, sometimes combined into “flex spaces” with an office in the front attached to warehouse space in the back. The warehouses would be relatively small, with the largest building of the site proposal being 60,000 square feet. The company initially reached out to the town about this plan between 30 and 60 days prior to the ARC meeting, per McCordsville Director of Planning and Building Ryan Crum.
ARC vice chair Tom Strayer and committee member Bryan Burney, who have both spent time on the town council and the latter of which is a current member of it, both noted that the community has pushed back heavily on industrial developments in the past, with Dr. Burney specifically noting an “alleyway” feel that residents opposed. Patch VP of Development Andrew Greenwood responded by saying they were presenting these flexible building styles for that exact purpose.
“To be frank, that’s our goal, is to have the retail frontage and that’s what you see from the road, and then behind it is more what we’d call a modern business park,” Greenwood said to the committee.
Within the plan are a pair of small gaps — two small homes that break up the land currently owned by Patch. The two smallest lots are planned to be in front of those houses from the perspective of Mt. Comfort Road. Patch is hoping to buy those two homes from their current owners, but Greenwood said that the company would not develop the lots in front of the homes unless and until they were acquired.
Strayer said he didn’t want any flex space along Mt. Comfort Road, citing both the aesthetic concerns brought up by Burney as well as the lack of activity that could occur if the buildings weren’t being used commercially. Crum suggested a size limitation for the buildings along that road, which Greenfield agreed to, pointing out that the lots along the road were much smaller than the ones on the interior of the proposal.
There were also concerns with what residents of an eventual residential development that the town hopes will eventually go in to the facility’s west would see, but a pond and a berm separating any future development from the west from the Patch facility as well as the orientation of the buildings masking any docking bays from both the east and the west, pushing them all to the interior of the plan, assuaged those fears from the committee.
Ultimately, the ARC recommended that a modified version of the town’s commercial architectural standard should be applied to anything along Mt. Comfort Road with more lax architectural requirements the less visible the buildings were. They also suggested height requirements on the front commercial buildings to ensure they were tall enough to mask any industrial buildings behind them.
Patch’s next step is to appear before the plan commission for a public hearing. The plan commission would then make a recommendation to the town council, which would have the final decision on the development.
