‘Good neighbor’: Mohr Capital rebuilds, aides Whiteland farmer

A one-million-square-foot warehouse in Whiteland’s Mohr Logistics Park was torn in half by the March 31 tornado. Six months later, Mohr has rebuilt and helped out some of their neighboring property owners in the process.

The EF-3 twister leveled buildings in its path, including homes, businesses and the warehouse. Mohr Capital, a Dallas-based real estate development company that owns the $350 million, 475-acre industrial park near Interstate 65, had around $45 million in damage to the warehouse known as Lot 6, said Gary Horn, chief development officer of Mohr Capital.

Horn said he could vividly recall the morning after the tornado struck.

“A buddy of mine texted me about 7:00 a.m. that Saturday morning,” Horn said. “Saturday morning was April 1st, and I remember getting the text and thinking it was an April fool’s joke. Obviously, we were shocked, but we were thankful that the building was not fully occupied, because there was a building in our park next door that was occupied. It’s just amazing that it came through the town and there were no fatalities. It hit our building square in the middle.”

Mohr Capital has dealt with roofing problems, water issues, fires, but they have never had a major tornado wreak havoc on one of their facilities. Horn immediately booked a flight from Dallas to Indianapolis, worked with a team to secure the site and collaborated with a demolition contractor to begin the cleanup, he said.

It immediately became apparent to Horn that portions of his building had blown across I-65, so they assisted the Indiana Department of Transportation with clearing the highway, he said. The state used snow plow trucks to push the debris off the interstate and piled the metal onto the side of the road so that traffic could resume.

Horn soon discovered that pieces of the warehouse were strewn about nearby farms up to three miles away.

“When we saw the path of the tornado, it looked horrible,” Horn said. “It blew some metal onto a barn across the highway. Our crews went over there and got all of the metal out of the barn and the guy whose barn it was obviously didn’t have the kind of equipment to remove the steel.”

Keith Hardin, owner of the property that was cleaned up by Mohr Capital, said he could not believe that a company of that size would offer to assist with the mess on his land. Hardin had purchased the property about two decades ago, and uses it to plant pumpkins and store farming equipment.

Hardin was watching the tornado on a radar while on vacation in Florida when he realized his property was on a direct line to be hit by the tornado. He headed home immediately upon hearing the news of its destruction.

“It took Mohr’s roof and insulation and deposited in my field across the interstate,” Hardin said. “I took a few pictures of the insulation spread across my property and sent them to my brother.”

His brother thought that it had snowed because of how much insulation was piled across the property. Although the tornado destroyed one of Hardin’s barns and bent another made of steel, he was mostly thankful because the tenants who live in the property’s farmhouse were not harmed, as debris broke the windows in the home.

He has begun to clean up the debris himself when a green pickup truck pulled into the property. A man exited the vehicle and stated that he was a representative of Mohr Capital. The man told Hardin that they were going to help him clean up the mess.

Hardin admitted that he did not believe the man at first because of the colossal scope of debris, but he was soon surprised to discover the company’s commitment.

Mohr Capital brought over dumpers and about 40 part-time employees to help Hardin. They worked for about three to four weeks and completely cleaned the property.

“I am extremely grateful,” Hardin said. “We’d still be working on it. I wouldn’t have been able to plant pumpkins this year if they hadn’t come over and helped clean up. They literally were there every day — even rainy days. It was a huge task. Mohr was not responsible for coming to my property and cleaning up. They just did it being good neighbors and took that expense upon themselves. I would have had to pay for all of that.

“Mohr saved me from having to spend probably $100,000.”

A portion of Mohr Logistics Park’s class-A industrial building was able to be salvaged as well. The slab of the building of the industrial park’s foundation did not have to be replaced, which would have added another six months to the rebuilding process.

The timing of the tornado was incredible as well, Horn said. Nobody was working in the building at the time of the disaster, and the tenants are still tied to opening in the complex now that they have reconstructed it.

“We turned the space over the day before the tornado hit to DHL, who had at least half of the building,” said Horn. “They didn’t have any people in the building, thank goodness, but they literally moved their office furniture in and they were going to start racking that Monday. The good news is that we were able to maintain that tenant. Obviously, it’s a disruption, but we had a signed lease with that tenant and we’re getting them back in right now. We had a signed letter of intent for the other half of the building, and I think we are getting close to signing a lease, so we were able to salvage that lease too.”

Horn commended Pepper Construction and Denny Construction, saying that it was amazing how fast everything was cleaned up and put back to normal.

Although they are still doing some interior work in the building, the warehouse will be fully set to move into in the near future.