Pending sale could bring big retail project to Anson

An unidentified buyer has agreed to acquire about 50 acres of high-profile land in Whitestown’s sprawling Anson development, retail broker Jacqueline Haynes said, but details remain under wraps per the terms of a confidentiality agreement.

“To our knowledge, it is a retail development,” said Haynes, a senior vice president at Cassidy Turley, which listed the property at Interstate 65 and Whitestown Parkway, west of Zionsville.

The land already is zoned for retail uses as part of the 1,700-acre Anson planned-unit development.

Whitestown Town Manager Dax Norton did not immediately return a phone call from IBJ.

The site would accommodate perhaps the largest retail development in the Indianapolis area since the Great Recession put the brakes on large projects in 2008. That year, locally based developers Simon Property Group and Gershman Brown Crowley Inc. opened Hamilton Town Center on 90 acres in Noblesville.

Simon, which in recent years has focused its U.S. development largely on outlet malls, is among a host of Indianapolis-based retail developers with the muscle to pull off a large-scale Anson project. A spokesman for Simon—whose nearest outlet mall to the Anson site is along I-65 in Edinburgh, 60 miles south—declined to comment.

Another aggressive Indianapolis-based retailer developer is Kite Realty Group Trust. A Kite spokesman did not immediately respond to an email message.

Cassidy Turley's Haynes said she could not identify the buyer, but added additional information likely would be available when the pre-sale "due diligence" process was completed in the next couple of months.

Retail development at Duke Realty Corp.’s $1 billion Anson project has picked up after stalling during the recession: a Hampton Inn, Meijer superstore and Goodwill outlet opened there this year, for example, joining a bevy of other national brands.

An online map of Anson’s south business district shows sales pending on three parcels—including two adjacent tracts totaling 47.5 acres just north of a newly rebuilt Perry-Worth Road. About a dozen smaller lots remain available.