An early layout of Al Neyer’s plan for a logistics park at Paul Hand Boulevard and Graham Road, Franklin.
Submitted photo
The Franklin Plan Commission approved a plat for an up to eight-building logistics park on the city’s far northside.
The logistics park is planned on 275 acres at Graham Road and Paul Hand Boulevard. The property is bordered to the south by existing industrial buildings, and to the west of existing housing and the Humane Society of Johnson County.
Al Neyer, a Cincinnati-based real estate development company, asked the plan commission to subdivide the property in up to eight lots for future development.
A potential layout that shows five buildings ranging from 1 million square feet to about 638,000 square feet is included in a drainage report submitted to the plan commission. However, the developer said the plans have not progressed to a stage where they can be certain of the building size or type of company that may move into the buildings.
The property will be bisected by an extension of Essex Drive, a north/south road off of Earlywood Drive that currently dead-ends near Essex Furukawa. The road would extend north from the dead-end to Paul Hand Boulevard, according to city documents.
Nearby property owners who live north of the property in Whiteland came to the meeting to ask the developer questions. They were concerned about drainage and extra traffic on Graham Road, which they believe is too narrow to handle the kind of semi-truck traffic the development might bring.
Conditions set by the plat approval stipulate there will be no curb cuts on Graham Road, so all buildings in the logistics park would be accessed from Essex Drive or Paul Hand Boulevard. Additionally, acceleration and deceleration lanes are required to be added to Paul Hand Boulevard, city documents show.
Neyer is working with the Johnson County Drainage Board and Surveyor’s Office on the best solution for drainage on the property, said Bill Butz, a civil engineer working with the company. Plans could include modifying Canary Ditch, a county-regulated drain on the property, to include increased capacity to hold and slowly release water, he said.
However, it is likely flooding issues the property owners are already dealing with won’t be solved by this solution, because the water is flowing onto their properties from the north, Butz said.
The land is already zoned industrial and was annexed into the city in 2018. The plan commission unanimously approved the plat.
Neyer’s logistics park will add to existing plans for industrial development on Paul Hand Boulevard. Atlanta, Georgia-based developer Core5 Industrial Partners plans to build two industrial buildings on 129 acres of farmland at 2500 Paul Hand Blvd. in Whiteland. One of those buildings will be 1.1 million square feet.
