Newcomer’s $25M spec project taps area’s industrial muscle
A Kansas City, Mo.-based developer has broken ground on a 740,000-square-foot distribution center in Lebanon, further juicing the Indy area’s status as a hot industrial market.
A Kansas City, Mo.-based developer has broken ground on a 740,000-square-foot distribution center in Lebanon, further juicing the Indy area’s status as a hot industrial market.
The 119,000-square-foot structure will be built next to the software developer’s headquarters on the northwest side as part of its growth plans to add 430 employees within the next few years.
The automaker filed a tax abatement request for the Bedford factory project, saying it would add about 40 jobs and raise the plant’s employment to some 650 workers.
Carmel City Council voted 6-0 Monday to terminate a tax abatement for Pharmakon LTC Pharmacy, which relocated its drug-repackaging operation to Noblesville last year.
Jarden Home Brands considered out-of-state sites for a new distribution center to serve its growing consumer-products business, but leaders opted to stay close to home. The Daleville-based company plans to move its headquarters to Fishers.
A subsidiary of the consumer products giant behind Ball jars, Yankee Candles, Crock-Pots and Coleman tents plans to spend nearly $22 million to open a regional headquarters and distribution center in Fishers that could employ nearly 300.
An unidentified company may take over a vacant distribution facility in Fishers, spurring town leaders to begin the process of making the property eligible for a tax abatement.
Workers will be hired as global firm Valeo buys new equipment for its 400,000-square-foot engine cooling factory to start new product lines for Honda, Nissan, Chrysler and Ford.
Employees have returned to work at a General Motors metal-stamping plant in Marion following a chemical explosion that killed a contractor and injured several others.
Every loophole, deduction, exemption, abatement and carve-out is designed to benefit one class of citizens at the expense of others. These are neither fair nor simple. They are rarely effective.
The [June 16] front page story about Councilor Christine Scales was very disappointing. It seems to me that what is missing at virtually all political levels are individuals who will in fact stand upon principles. Despite partisan bickering in the council, the city administration—Republican or Democrat—eventually seems to get what it wants.
Indianapolis is considering nearly $2.6 million in tax breaks over 10 years as an incentive for Interactive Intelligence’s planned $28 million investment.
Want more police officers? Want those winter-battered streets repaired? Want more sidewalks and street lights? Better parks and green spaces?
Without even touching upon the fairness of Indiana taxpayers subsidizing Hollywood studios, film tax credits are of dubious value. The jobs they generate are transient, often low-paying and unlikely to meet the simplest benefit-cost calculus.
Indianapolis-based Algaeon Inc. plans to move its algae-growing operation to Westfield, investing $25 million and adding 25 jobs over the next five years. The biotech firm is seeking to phase in personal property taxes while it ramps up production.
Indianapolis-based VoCare Inc. has formed a partnership with Motorola Mobility LLC, a subsidiary of Google Inc., to offer telehealth and remote monitoring services to seniors via Motorola smartphones. The partnership comes as VoCare raised $5 million this spring and is now trying to raise another $20 million. Along with Motorola, VoCare will offer smartphones that come preloaded with applications that connect to health care monitoring peripherals, the peripherals themselves, along with the phone and data services needed to power them. The VoCare phones have a safety button that connects them immediately to a remote call center if they experience falls or other emergencies. Also, VoCare’s remote monitoring system can keep track of seniors' health status as they use the medical peripherals or if their typical movement patterns change, suggesting a change in health. VoCare CEO Steve Peabody said in a prepared statement that the service will allow doctors to keep track of their patients and, using the video functions on the smartphones, make “virtual house calls.”
Indianapolis-based Indigo BioSystems Inc. has changed CEOs after securing $8.5 million in venture capital. The north-side firm of 47 employees makes software used by medical and research labs to review and analyze chemical compounds and tissue samples. Its new CEO is past president Randall Julian, a former Eli Lilly and Co. researcher who founded the company in 2004 through the drugmaker’s venture group. Julian takes over from Raul Zavaleta, who had led the company since 2011 so Julian could focus on product development. Zavaleta remains with the company as a consultant and a board director. Bootstrap Venture Fund LP, headquartered in San Diego, led the $8.5 million investment round. The investment is Indigo's second from a venture capital firm. The company raised $1.8 million in 2011. It has also received $1.75 million in grants from the federally funded 21st Century Research and Technology Fund, as well as $700,000 in conditional tax credits through the Indiana Economic Development Corp.
Indianapolis-based Cornerstone Cos. could break ground this year on an $11 million medical office building, expected to be largely owned by the doctors who practice there. Cornerstone is planning to locate the three-story, 43,000-square-foot building along Interstate 69 on a four-acre site on Olivia Way, which is near both the St. Vincent Fishers Hospital and the Indiana University Health Saxony Hospital. The Fishers Town Council agreed to forgive two-thirds of the property taxes on the project for six years. When the abatement runs out, Deer Creek Point’s property tax bill is expected to be about $178,000 a year—$70,000 more than a retail project would generate, according to projections prepared by public finance firm H.J. Umbaugh & Associates.
Cornerstone Cos. plans to locate the $11 million project near Interstate 69.
Peapod Inc. has discovered fertile ground in Indianapolis despite a crowded field of grocery competitors, said Scott DeGraeve, senior vice president at the country’s oldest and biggest online grocery-delivery service.
Peapod Inc., an online grocery-delivery service, is seeking city tax incentives to help it with an expansion that would create 238 jobs by 2018. The jobs would pay about $15 per hour.
Indianapolis-based health insurer WellPoint Inc. will start paying cancer doctors $350 per month more for every WellPoint patient they treat—if the doctors agree to follow WellPoint’s recommended treatment plans, according to the Wall Street Journal. The program aims to curb the 25-percent annual growth in spending on cancer care and to reduce the nearly one-third of chemotherapy patients who receive treatment conflicting with current medical evidence and best practices. The extra payments are also designed to make it easier financially for oncology practices to prescribe lower-cost drugs—because the revenue oncologists make from those drugs is less than more expensive drugs. Because oncologists not only prescribe, but also infuse many cancer drugs into their patients, the drugs often account for a substantial amount of their practice revenue. The program will be implemented July 1 in Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Wisconsin.
Radiopharmaceuticals maker Zevacor Molecular plans to open a $40 million medical isotope-production facility in Noblesville, creating nearly 50 jobs within five years. Noblesville will provide an estimated $1.9 million—about 85 percent of the new property taxes the project should produce—in equipment and other necessities, according to a development deal the Common Council unanimously approved Tuesday. The agreement also calls for Zevacor to get a 95-percent abatement on personal property taxes for 10 years. Zevacor, which has eight employees and an office in Fishers, is a for-profit subsidiary of Decatur, Ill.-based not-for-profit Illinois Health & Science—also the parent of Decatur Memorial Hospital. It operates hospital cyclotrons and nuclear pharmacies in several states, said Kenneth Smithmier, Illinois Health’s president and CEO. A similar facility in Noblesville had been planned three years ago by Positron Corp., but the company failed to line up the necessary financial support.
The Indiana University School of Medicine will help oversee a three-year, $30 million concussion study being funded by the Indianapolis-based NCAA and the U.S. Defense Department, according to the Associated Press. The study, which will involve athletes from as many as 30 universities, will be led by IU's School of Medicine in collaboration with the University of Michigan and the Medical College of Wisconsin. IU researchers aim to collect data on 37,000 athletes.
Indianapolis-based OurHealth LLC plans to create a network of health care clinics serving employers across Indiana over the next four years and hire up to 450 people. The 5-year-old company has pledged to invest nearly $20 million, which would include the cost of doubling the size of its headquarters downtown. It currently leases about 10,000 square feet at OneAmerica Tower. OurHealth also plans to lease real estate for a series of 3,500-square-foot health clinics across the state. In June, OurHealth plans to begin hiring certified medical assistants, health coaches, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and doctors to staff its clinics. OurHealth’s website already has posted job openings in Kokomo, Logansport, Madison, Merrillville and Indianapolis. The firm employs more than 120 people and operates 15 clinics, most of which are dedicated to a single employer. The new clinics typically would serve multiple employers.
French drug company Sanofi will seek to sell Eli Lilly and Co.’s erectile dysfunction drug Cialis without a prescription, the companies announced last week, according to Bloomberg News. Sanofi will apply for approval of Cialis as an over-the-counter treatment in the United States, Europe, Canada and Australia, and will market the drug after certain patents expire. The deal hinges on regulatory approval in each country—a big question mark, according to analysts. The plan gives Sanofi access to a drug that garnered $2.16 billion in sales last year and faces generic competition in 2017.