“We’ve had a lot of success down there, but it is getting a little crowded,” Gaston said. “We started an expanded search and this is the first place we started to look.”
Two 562,000-square-foot warehouses are proposed on 97 acres, eventually bringing an estimated 450 jobs. Occupants for the warehouses have not yet been secured. Gaston said NorthPoint usually seeks tenants once a project is underway.
“The demand for Class A industrial warehouse space continues to grow as supply chain and logistical challenges mount across the region,” Gaston wrote in a letter to city officials.
According to drawings NorthPoint submitted to the city, the buildings would go between County Road 25A and I-75, roughly halfway between Blauser Drive and Evanston Road.
Key to the development is a requested change to the city’s thoroughfare plan, said Colin Carville, city planning/zoning administrator.
The current thoroughfare plan dating to 2006 calls for extending Kinna Drive south to Evanston Road, and adding an east-west connection to the intersection of South County Road 25A and Michaels Road.
The city is being asked to cancel plans for both roads, as the warehouse property would occupy that site.
Traffic would be directed onto Kinna Drive to Main Street, or onto Blauser to County Road 25A, to keep warehouse-related traffic off of residential roads to the south and west, Carville said.
The Planning Board will hold a public hearing on the requested change at its March 8 meeting. The targeted properties are owned by RCS Peerless Inc. and are zoned light industrial.
The site is attractive because of its proximity to Interstate 75 and the property’s connections to Kinna Drive and Blauser Drive, Gaston said. The location should provide “easy flow of trucks and vehicular traffic around” the site, he said.
The site plan shared with the city should be considered very conceptual, Gaston said.
“NorthPoint would be a highly prized and coveted win for the city as far as jobs,” said Matt Spring, city development director.
After the March 8 meeting, the Planning Board would make a recommendation on the request to the Tipp City Council. And council also would hold a public hearing on the request before its vote, Spring said.
Groundbreaking for the project could be as soon as this summer, if the request is approved, Gaston said.
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