The Merrillville Town Council heard of four “viable” projects at Ameriplex at the Crossroads at its meeting Tuesday, which would create more than 700 jobs and cost more than $200 million in total if all come to fruition.
“They would take a huge bite out of what available land we have left,” said Michael O’Connor, vice president and development and leasing for Holladay Properties.
The business park between Interstate 65 and Broadway is one of Holladay’s properties.
One of the projects, called Merit, is under contract and wants to close on a 35-acre parcel fronting Massachusetts Street by December, O’Connor said.
“They want to go full speed ahead. The other projects are offers that we haven’t accepted yet. We’re trying to decide where to put them,” O’Connor said.
Karen Lauerman, president and CEO of Lake County IN Economic Alliance, said Merit, a distribution company, would occupy a 150,000-square-foot building and employ 300 to 500 people, depending on whether they do a complete buildout. She said the project started about four years ago.
Town Manager Patrick Reardon said the company isn’t looking for any financial incentives from the town. However, the company is looking for a traffic light to be installed at 96th Avenue and Broadway, he said.
Reardon said a manufacturing company is interested in building a 50,000-square-foot structure on 25 acres at the Ameriplex, with the possibility of a second building in the future. He said the cost of the project would be $55 million to $60 million, excluding the cost of the land. He said the company would create about 250 jobs.
Another company is looking to build an automated freezer/cooling warehouse with an investment value of $60 million on a 25-acre parcel in the park, but there was some concern that the height of the proposed building, originally 130-feet, wasn’t suitable for the Ameriplex property.
The developers were given four other sites in the town to consider, and Reardon said they’re actively looking at two of those sites.
“Our push is to get everything in Merrillville,” Reardon said.
Don Koliboski, with the Lake County IN Economic Alliance, said the trend in cold storage is to go vertical with buildings.
“There’s a cluster of them on the I-65 corridor,” Koliboski said.
A fourth project in the works involves a biotech company that could provide 50 technical jobs to start, growing to 150 jobs, Lauerman said. The proposal would take up 50 to 75 acres in the Ameriplex.
“We have every reason to believe all these projects are viable and should happen,” Reardon said.
He said the list of projects doesn’t include Midwest Auto and Tire Parts, which is building a 250,000-square-foot building in the park and plans to create 150 new jobs by the end of 2024.
Lauerman said many of these projects have been in the works for several years.
“These projects don’t happen overnight. Three are return projects that started four to six years ago,” she said.
Karen Caffarini is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
