Five Seasons owner seeks to rezone Carmel site for possible development

The owner of the Five Seasons Family Sports Club in Carmel is seeking to redevelop the 15.4-acre property and has submitted conceptual plans for an office park.

Covington, Kentucky-based Corporex Cos. has filed with the city to rezone the site at 1300 E. 96th St. from R-1 residential to allow for a planned unit development district.

The submitted plans include renderings for a couple of different configurations of the property, each calling for at least 295,000 square feet of office space and a multi-level parking garage with at least 1,300 spaces.

Reached by phone Tuesday, Tom Banta, managing director of Corporex, said the company wants to rezone the site from residential to commercial to prepare it for possible redevelopment as an office park. The plans are meant to be conceptual—intended more to illustrate the character of a possible development—and were submitted to fulfill a requirement for seeking rezoning, he said.

“At some point, we might [redevelop the site],” Banta said. “The owner just wanted the zoning to be consistent so, if down the road we do something, we can.”

Redeveloping the property into an office park seems to make sense, said Dan Richardson, an office broker at CBRE, given the strong performances of the North Meridian and Keystone office submarkets.

North Meridian boasted an occupancy rate of 92.3 percent and Keystone one of 87.4 percent, both higher than the entire Indianapolis market average of 84.2 percent, according to CBRE’s second-quarter office report.

“That location for office space is a proven location,” Richardson said. “Parkwood Crossing [to the west], historically, is some of the best-occupied office space in town. And you’re right next door to the Monon Trail. I don’t see any reason from a location point of view why that wouldn’t work.”

The Five Seasons Family Sports Club group was founded in 1988 and is owned by Corporex. Besides Indianapolis, Corporex has Five Seasons locations in Northbrook and Burr Ridge, Illinois; Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio; and Crestview Hills, Kentucky.

Five Seasons clubs typically feature tennis courts, fitness centers, swimming pools, a day spa and dining options.

But intense competition in the fitness market likely is prompting Corporex to develop the land, said Sam Smith, principal and chairman of Resource Commercial Real Estate.

“I think the industry, in general, has struggled,” he said. “There have been a bevy of new fitness centers, so you see probably over a dozen competitors in that space that didn’t exist five to 10 years ago.”

LA Fitness, for instance, has blanketed central Indiana with nearly a dozen clubs in recent years. Planet Fitness also has about a dozen local locations.

Corporex bills itself as one of the nation’s largest privately held real estate, hospitality and investment companies. 

Editor's note: This story was changed from its original version to add comments from Banta and clarify that the submitted plans were conceptual.