A new industrial park in Tippecanoe County is the first site in the state to meet stiffer development standards and earn the designation of Indiana Site Certified Gold.
That means the 164 acre site bounded on the south by Haggerty Lane and on the east by I-65 ranks high on the list of properties marketed to business and industry leaders.
Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs Executive Director Bill Konyha says the certification assures corporate site selection consultants the land has access to utilities and roads, and is ready for development.
“They now have a degree of security in the knowledge that if they acquire a site they can go in and get a building permit and get started,” he says.
West Lafayette orthodontist Guthrie Carr says his great-grandfather purchased the farm land as an investment more than 80 years ago.
Carr says the certification process began 18 months ago after his family decided to allow the city of Lafayette to annex the property.
“This certification is exhaustively thorough,” he says. “They vet this property in every way so that anybody who takes up residence with their business there won’t be disappointed that they’ve found something that they didn’t want to find that affects their business operation.”
Board of Commissioners President Tom Murtaugh says the location is vital to the community’s continued economic growth because two other industrial parks are filling up.
“If you don’t have these properties that are there ready to go, then you’re out of the picture,” he says. “You’re no longer in consideration.”
Murtaugh and Konyha say the location, named Lafayette I-65 Industrial Sites, could appeal to a large manufacturer or be divided into smaller sites for use by suppliers of existing industries.
