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Automotive parts manufacturer BorgWarner Inc. is closing its Noblesville facility on the western edge of the city’s Innovation Mile district as part of larger restructuring efforts undertaken by the company late last year.
The Michigan-based company on Friday told IBJ that work has been underway since October to move employees from the Noblesville Technical Center to a similar facility in Kokomo by the end of 2025.
The 104,000-square-foot facility at 13975 BorgWarner Drive, fronting Interstate 69, was constructed for the company in 2018 for $15 million. The company’s operation at the building has generally focused on research and development related to propulsion systems for internal combustion, hybrid and electric vehicles since opening.
“BorgWarner is restructuring to adapt its cost structure in order to remain competitive in the current environment, including the closure, or consolidation of manufacturing and/or technical centers in all major regions,” Michelle Collins, global director of marketing and public relations for the company, said in an email.
BorgWarner is perhaps best known for its connection to the Indianapolis 500, as the namesake of the trophy celebrating each of the race’s winners throughout its history.
Collins said 21 employees are expected to lose their jobs in the move, while the remaining employees will transfer to the Kokomo Technical Center, a 410,000-square-foot facility in southeast Kokomo. That building was acquired in 2020 from Delphi Technologies and focuses on the development of products like electronics, inverters and sensors for internal combustion and electric vehicles. The Kokomo Technical Center has been in operation since 1987.
Noblesville Mayor Chris Jensen said the company indicated that the move was “strictly related” to a need to consolidate operations. He added that while he is disappointed the city would lose the company, he expects the site will be occupied quickly by a new user given its location within Innovation Mile and proximity to the interstate.
“It’s not something we love to talk about, when a Fortune 500 company exits, but they’ve assured our team that it’s nothing against Noblesville—it was simply a changing dynamic within the national economy and their business model,” Jensen said. “I respect that. They’ve been a great corporate partner for us for years … and we wish them the best.”
The company received $3.8 million from the city toward the cost of the cost of the project’s construction and various personal property purchases, including $13 million in machinery and lab equipment.
BorgWarner was also reimbursed for $309,000 related to road and sewer work, and the city took out bonds to improve 141st Street with extended sanitary sewer and stormwater lines to the site, along with a private road to the main entrance of the building.
BorgWarner is seeking a company to sublease the property for the remainder of its term, which runs through April 2030. The turn-key building consists of a 42,000-square-foot research and development-focused industrial space and 62,000 square feet of office space across two floors. It is owned by a holding company affiliated with South Bend-based Great Lakes Capital.
Andrew Urban and Aaron Snoddy with the Indianapolis office of Colliers International have been hired by BorgWarner to find a new user for the property.
Urban, an executive vice president for the Toronto-based brokerage, told IBJ in an email that the site offers “a rare opportunity for companies to sublease a high-quality and visible property in an excellent community with a growing and talented labor pool.”
While the broker said there’s been strong interest in the property, he declined to speculate or offer details on potential users.
The Innovation Mile area, a stretch of undeveloped agricultural land on the city’s southeast side, has become a hotbed of economic development over the past two years, with the addition of the Indiana Orthopedic Institute earlier this month and the ongoing construction of The Arena at Innovation Mile, future home to the Indiana Pacers’ NBA developmental league team.
The Innovation Mile economic district stretches between East 141st Street and Interstate 69, east of Olio Road.
Sources have also told IBJ that Noblesville is among the three finalists for a new headquarters for USA Gymnastics, alongside Westfield and Frisco, Texas. The sources have said that multiple sites within the city’s Innovation Mile have been floated as options for the national governing organization, including the BorgWarner campus.
Jensen declined to say whether USA Gymnastics might be considering the property or others in Noblesville, stating that the organization itself “will have to comment on that,” but added that he thinks it could be a good fit if something were to come together.
“We certainly believe that Innovation Mile would make an interesting home for them in the future, but they have big decisions to make about what they want [and] what their next chapter looks like,” he said.
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And that’s why you don’t name a street after a company on it.
You mean like Galyan Way out in Plainfield?
Funny! And Indy has never named a street after Dave Letterman, one of our most famous personalities. But we have plenty of not so famous names.