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NorthPoint II, a proposed 169-acre business park in Westfield, is one step closer to receiving final approval.
The Westfield Advisory Plan Commission voted 8-0 Monday to issue a favorable recommendation for the project, which would be built near State Road 38 and Hinkle Road on the city’s rural northeast side.
The plan will return to the Westfield City Council, which will vote on whether to approve a request to rezone the property from Agriculture/Single-Family Rural District to the NorthPoint II Planned Unit Development District. The council’s next scheduled meeting is April 9.
If the council approves the request to rezone the property, the developer, South Bend-based Holladay Properties, plans to file a detailed development plan in late 2024 or early 2025 and begin construction in the middle of 2025, according to documents filed with the city.
Holladay reintroduced NorthPoint II early this year after the developer withdrew the project in 2022 following two years of resistance from neighbors.
Bastian Solutions, a Carmel-based subsidiary of Japan-based Toyota Industries Corp., had planned to build a corporate campus at NorthPoint II. Instead, the company announced last year it would move its corporate headquarters and build a huge manufacturing plant at a $130 million campus in Noblesville.
Among the changes to the original plan is a 10-acre tree preservation area on the west side of the property that would serve as a buffer between NorthPoint II and residents’ homes. Holladay would also provide a $70,000 stipend, or $10,000 each, to seven nearby residents on Anthony Road to use for landscaping purposes.
Plan Commission member Andre Maue at Monday’s meeting noted the changes made to the original design to make the project more palatable for residents.
“When you look at U.S. 31 and State Road 38, this use and the accessibility, it just seems like the right spot for it,” Maue said. “Having said that, obviously, there are neighbors who have been in place since [before] U.S. 31 and State Road 38 were what they are now. I understand the need for that sensitivity.”
Mayor Scott Willis has made NorthPoint II a priority early in his first term because he said Westfield needs the project to be competitive.
He has pointed to Noblesville’s Innovation Mile and the Indiana Economic Development Corp.’s LEAP Research and Innovation District in Lebanon as examples of what Westfield needs to work toward: having land ready with infrastructure, utilities and water so companies can build quickly.
Willis has held community meetings since late last year between residents and representatives from Holladay to work through differences.
If approved, the NorthPoint II project would be Holladay’s second major business park endeavor in Westfield. The developer in 2018 opened NorthPoint Industrial Park along U.S. 31 and East 196th Street.
Its first tenant was Bastian Solutions, which moved into a 140,000-square-foot building. Gordon Food Service and Abbott Laboratories committed to moving into 500,000- and 120,000-square-foot buildings, respectively, the following year to round out the park’s “big three” occupants.
Westfield-based specialty contracting firm Browning Chapman opened a 65,000-square-foot office and warehouse building in NorthPoint in 2019. Holladay in May 2021 announced plans to spend $25.5 million to build three new speculative distribution buildings.
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Are you sure you want to keep saying Hinkle Road? There is a county owned park along Hinkle, Bray Family Homestead. Doesn’t this border Anthony Road?