Zionsville plans 160-acre, $250M development south of historic village

Zionsville Mayor John Stehr announced plans Wednesday for a $250 million real estate development south of the town’s historic village area.

At his first State of the Town address, Stehr unveiled the masterplan for the 160-acre South Village that would be developed on both sides of Zionsville Road/South Main Street. South Village would be bordered by Sycamore Street to the north, Creekside Corporate Park to the east, Old 106th Street to the south and Eagle Creek to the west.

“I think everybody agrees that our brick street is the heart and soul of the town,” Stehr told IBJ. “So, what this is designed to do is to support the brick street, and I think that if you want to really support and preserve the brick street we have, you have to put people in proximity to it.”

Town planners are working on a planned unit development, or PUD, that would guide future development in the South Village area. The South Village PUD would supersede all existing PUDs in the area, including the Creekside Corporate Park PUD. The new PUD would set standards for architecture, setbacks and building heights, which would be limited to three stories north of where Eagle Creek shifts to the east.

Initial plans for the South Village include about 250 residential units (single-family houses, condominiums and apartments); 500,000 square feet of office space, retail, dining and public plazas; and parks and nature trails.

Stehr said 40% of the acreage would be preserved for green space. The development would also include one or two parking garages, public restrooms and connections to the Big 4 Rail Trail.

Stehr said the first stage of construction would involve realigning streets south of the brick-paved Village Business District to improve traffic flow.

A section of South Main Street would be removed south of Sycamore Street, while South 1st Street would be extended to the south.

A dog-bone-style roundabout would be placed where South Main Street and South 1st Street would be parallel. Another roundabout would be built to the north at Sycamore Street and South 1st Street. (Zionsville Road changes names to South Main Street north of West 106th Street.)

Stehr said land between South Main Street and South 1st Street would be available for development after the roadways are realigned. He said the area could include a public plaza like Valparaiso’s 2.5-acre Central Park Plaza, which features an ice rink and pavilion.

The town owns the block northwest of Sycamore and Main streets that housed a former PNC Bank and a Zionsville Lock & Safe store before the town demolished the two buildings in 2020.

The remainder of the South Village area is owned by other landowners, including developers. Stehr said the town has all landowners on-board with the South Village PUD plan, and the town does not plan to purchase any additional land.

“We’re not in the real estate business,” Stehr said. “That’s what the real estate people and landowners do.”

The Zionsville Plan Commission will review the South Village Planned Unit Development at its meeting on April 15. The Zionsville Town Council will hear about plans for the development after the plan commission issues a recommendation.

“Our vision is not to create Zionsville 2.0, but we need to evolve as a community,” Stehr said.

Zionsville began looking at ways to develop the South Village area more than 30 years ago, and several plans over the years have been proposed but not come to fruition.

Most recently, former Mayor Emily Styron in 2020 introduced a study area for the so-called community gateway project south of downtown that would have spanned 11 acres.

In 2013, Indianapolis-based Buckingham Cos. began working to acquire 20 acres of land along Eagle Creek to the south for a mixed-use project that never came to fruition.

In 2016, locally based 200 West Partners LLC proposed a three-story retail and office building, a restaurant, single-family housing and a four-story multifamily building with 50 units on the site.

And in 2019, Carmel-based J.C. Hart Co. Inc. attempted to rezone four acres on the southwest corner of Sycamore and Second streets—a property that formerly housed the Calico Corners store—to build Sycamore Flats, a 184-unit apartment complex with retail space and a parking garage.

Neighbors opposed the $40 million project, citing its density and potential for creating traffic problems. Thousands signed a petition opposing the development before the town council voted it down.

To gain support, Stehr will host a series of “South Village chats” over the next couple of months where he will speak with clubs, groups and homeowners’ associations.

“We really want to communicate what it is that we have in mind and what it is that we want to do, and we want to be very open,” Stehr said.