'Hoosier Jack' mega site gets OK from Vigo County commissioners

The oddly shaped, 3,821-acre site stretches about five miles from east to west and more than two miles north to south in some spots. It covers mostly agricultural land and a former coal mine operated by Peabody Energy. It also includes lakes, ponds, streams and woodland areas located roughly between the towns of Pimento and Farmersburg and reaching almost as far east as Blackhawk. It includes land in Linton and Pierson townships.

A half-dozen people living near the area, to be known as the Hoosier Jack Mega Site after the son of property owner Greg Gibson, attended a rezoning meeting of the Vigo County Commissioners Monday morning in the Vigo County Annex. The residents all objected to the rezoning and asked the three-person legislative body to “table” the subject until a future date.

Cindy Foote of Pimento complained to the commissioners that signs advertising the rezoning request were not posted on the property until late August, a little more than two weeks ago.

“It takes longer for an out-of-state check to clear” than it has taken for the rezoning, she said. 

Randy Knopp, who also lives near the site, did most of the talking at the nearly two-hour meeting. He asked why the Indiana Department of Natural Resources was not present at public meetings about the land. He also asked what sorts of businesses might operate there and also wondered, as he did at last week’s Area Plan Commission meeting, about what he asserts is an ammunition “business” operating on the property.

“I just think it needs to be investigated thoroughly,” Knopp said of the operation, which Gibson told the Tribune-Star last week involved a group of individuals interested in ammunition research and development operating out of a former Peabody office building. Local officials at the meeting had no further information on the operation and said a county inspector would be looking into it. Calls were placed to Gibson’s business and cellular phone Monday afternoon.

The Vigo County Commissioners, Judy Anderson, Mike Ciolli and Brad Anderson, approved the rezoning by a voice vote without opposition. They told those objecting that no businesses can begin operating on the property without drainage and other plans in place and without further approval from the Area Plan Commission in a public meeting.

Subdividing the property for future development before the Area Plan Commission is a “public approval process,” agreed Steve Witt, president of the Terre Haute Economic Development Corp., which supported the mega park. “That’s the public option for folks to weigh in in that regard,” he said.

The mega park offers features that make it attractive to industry, Witt said. Those include railroad access, nearness to landfill gas, easy access to utilities and a single property owner. 

There are between 350 and 400 acres still available for development in the Vigo County Industrial Park, which is northwest of the new mega site, Witt told the Tribune-Star after the meeting. There are also about 600 acres available at the former Pfizer plant site, also in southern Vigo County and smaller pieces of land available at the Fort Harrison Business Park and about 20 acres currently available for development at 13th and Hulman streets.

This new, nearly 4,000-acre “mega park” is far larger than any other available industrial park in the county and joins just a few such places of similar size in the state, Witt said. Other large mega parks in Indiana include River Ridge Commerce Center in Jeffersonville (6,000 acres) and Vermillion Rise in Vermillion County (7,155 acres), he said.

Despite the future appeal to potential development, residents in the area expressed regret that their rural setting could change dramatically in the future.

“I’ve hunted rabbits on [this land] all my life,” said Jeremiah Latta, speaking to the commissioners. “Never in a million years” would he have purchased his current property had he known land nearby would be zoned for industrial uses, he said.