Lake County Economic Alliance (LCEA) rolled back their sleeves and dug deep into helping the Town of Merrillville and Crow Industrial Holdings (CHI) bring the next Class A business park with close to $500 million investment and more than 2 million square feet under roof along Mississippi Street and I-65 fruition.
CHI made a home here in Northwest Indiana, specifically Lake County. Managing Director, Matt Kurucz, and Development Associate, Sean Andrews, have come to the Region with support from locals. They previously purchased land and developed portions of Ameriplex at the Crossroads (along Broadway with I-65 frontage in Merrillville) and erected attractive panel buildings bringing clients like Midwest Truck & Auto, Quality Pasta, Turbonetics and Big Lots Distribution.
The Sander’s Farm had been in the Sander’s family for over 100 years and CHI knew they wanted to preserve that. Understanding the family dynamic further, CHI conducted negotiations with the family at the Sander’s dinner table.
“Mrs. Sanders will name the internal streets and we will be building a gazebo with a garden that is etched with the family’s homestead. Another sentimental piece of this development is incorporating the Sanders family name into the Silo at Sander’s Farm,” Kurucz said.
Kurucz and the rest of CHI came to Lake County with big projects, big dreams, and big support. Councilman Shawn Pettit and LCEA have been our biggest supporters for the two years we’ve been in town developing,” Kurucz said.
LCEA made Lake County economically appealing and ensured that CHI had all resources available from data analysis to town connections, utility providers to financial support via the READI grant.
LCEA understood the huge advantage this project could bring to the people of Lake County from providing new jobs full-time for the long term and engaging our building trades for safe and quality construction, tax revenue, support for the community, diversification of industry sectors, and so much more. LCEA wanted and encouraged CHI to plant more roots in Lake County.
“CHI’s reputation for quality business parks and community engagement speaks for itself. They are here for the long-term and we hope they will continue to identify additional sites and develop even more in Lake County. LCEA’s job turns from facilitating the development to finding end users [tenants] for the park, which is our mission to bring jobs and investment to all of Lake County,” LCEA president and CEO, Karen Lauerman said.
Merrillville Town Councilman, Shawn Pettit, believes in CHI’s projects and what they’re bringing to Lake County and so should everyone else.
“This is big. This is one of the things I wanted to do. Crow has proven themselves. They build. Nothing is done halfway. This is creating job opportunities for all of us, especially Merrillville. We’ve got 14 union halls in town, and we want to make sure those guys have opportunities for work and strong economic development projects like this creates jobs,” Pettit said. “I think their work speaks for itself. They’ve made an investment in our town and no one usually gets a $250-500 million investment in their town on a regular basis.”
“Trusting CHI, LCEA, and the Town of Merrillville is the most important thing if we want Lake County to continue to grow at an exponential rate. Trust that if we deliver spec buildings to the market, tenants will come,” CHI Development Associate and lead developer of Silos at Sander’s Farm, Sean Andrews said.
A true collaboration brought an attractive development to the Town of Merrillville and the hearts of Lake County residents. National developers are seeing what a gem Lake County is and they’re coming into town to buy/develop land.
After years of outreach and education about the region, the Northwest Indiana market is taking off which is good news for the people of Lake County—investment, jobs, and prosperity.
To learn more about Silos at Sander’s Farm visit www.avisonyoung.us/properties/9820-mississippi-street-merrillville-lease or the LCEA, please visit www.LCEA.us.