Rumors fly about mystery development in Hamilton County

NOBLESVILLE, Ind. — The rumors are flying faster than a bird before the storm about development plans for 2,200 acres of farmland nestled here in eastern Hamilton County.

Is it an airport? A quarry? An amusement park? An Amazon distribution plant?

Nobody knows for sure — but one thing is for certain; men in crisp suits are offering large sums of cash to farmers in the area.

Some of those landowners are ready to take the money and run, as much as $40,000 an acre.

Others, though, don't want to sell and are wracked with anxiety about what secret plans are being hatched.

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“These rumors are tortuous. It’s killing me,” said Rebecca Harger, owner of Country Moon Winery, 16200 Prairie Baptist Road. She told the interlopers she doesn’t plan to sell. "At the same time, I don’t know what my neighbors are doing.”

Realtors for Berkshire Hathaway began mailing offers for land about 18 months ago and, as recently as two weeks ago, visited some of the holdouts in person, including Harger.

The land being sought is within a 23-square-mile swath of crops bordered by Ind. 38 to the north and 146th Street to the south, Boden Road to the west and Cyntheanne Road to the east. The target area is close to Klipsch Music Center and Hamilton Town Center.

The Hathaway agents have told property owners that the buyer wants to build something of “significant economic” value to the area or a “great economic asset to the community,” according to the farmers who were approached.

“But he said he wasn’t at liberty to say what it was, so that kind of got the rumors flying,” said Wilson Gatewood, owner of Gatewood Farms.

Gatewood signed a purchase option with Hathaway to sell 900 acres, but he said a confidentiality agreement prevented him from saying how much he was offered or anything else about the plan.  At $40,000 an acre, as some officials have been told is the going rate, it would fetch Gatewood $36 million.

Gatewood said the option agreement means he can’t sell to anyone else as long as the development plan is alive.

Robert Robey, the Hathaway agent working with Gatewood, refused to discuss the land deals or disclose the buyer.

“I am bound by a confidentiality agreement with my client,” he said of the buyer.

That has only fueled speculation about what the developer plans. Among the rumors: a federal prison, a mine, a call center, a warehouse cluster.

While there’s a grain of logic to each of those possibilities, the airport rumor hangs in the air like a foul odor because it has long been a bugaboo in that part of the county — and because of how much land is being sought.

Twelve years ago, Fishers tried to push the Indianapolis Metropolitan Airport onto Noblesville because it wanted to develop the airport at 106th Street and Alllisonville Road. Noblesville declined. Around the same time, another plan was advanced to build a regional airport near Lapel in Madison County to replace both the Fishers airfield and the Anderson Municipal Airport. A consultant was hired and purchases worth $12,000 to $20,000 per acre were being offered. But the public opposed the plan, and it was killed.  

This year, Indianapolis Executive Airport in Zionsville announced plans to expand its lone runway by 1,500 feet, which will mean more flights and larger, louder airplanes.

Now, the thinking goes, FedEx, UPS or Amazon might be spying the area for cargo flights to feed warehouses in nearby Whitestown.

Vineyard owner Harger said that would be the worst use of the land.

“Who would want to be at a concert at Klipsch or drinking coffee at the Town Center with these huge planes landing,” she said. “And they would be flying really low at that point.”

Noblesville Deputy Mayor Steve Cooke said city officials have heard the rumors but said no Realtors have approached the city. He cautioned that an airport was not in the city's long-range plans.

“It’s kind of surprising no one has come to us because we would have a lot of jurisdiction” over development, he said. Much of the farmland is in unincorporated Hamilton County, but Noblesville would likely need to annex the property to extend utility and infrastructure services.

Hamilton County Commission President Mark Heirbrandt said he has fielded inquiries from citizens and local officials, including Noblesvile Mayor John Ditslear. He said he understood the offers were up to $40,000 an acre for 2,200 acres.

Whitecroft Farms business agent John Gamb said he had been approached by several buyers about selling 600 acres but wouldn't say if Hathaway was one of them.

A representative for Kreagcroft, which owns 130 acres of farmland, refused to comment, as did two other farmers who own property.

Gatewood said most farmers in the area have been offered the sales options, though he did not know how many accepted.

Gatewood, 59, has lived on the farm his whole life and works the corn and soybean fields with his son, Curt, 31.

He said he was already looking to sell because creeping development had complicated farm operations, and he would look elsewhere in Indiana for an even bigger farm.

Since development is inevitable, Gatewood said he can’t concern himself too much with what is built there.

“We don’t want to see anything detrimental, but it’s not up to us anymore,” Gatewood said.

Marsha Thein, 59, who owns about 100 acres of farmland with her husband, Martin, said she, too, had been approached by a Hathaway agent. But she said they were not interested in selling — at least not yet.

"I know this land will be developed one day, and I don't want to hold onto it my whole life," Thein said. "But the price has to be right — $40,000 an acre isn't going to do it. It is going to take someone with big pockets to take down all the land that they are talking about."

Call IndyStar reporter John Tuohy at (317) 444-6418. Follow him on Twitter andFacebook.