Franklin College is planning a mixed-use development on approximately 250 acres on the north side of Park Avenue/Greensburg Road and west of Umbarger Lane/County Road 450 East.
The goal of creating a tech park south of Franklin College’s campus is still alive.
The college had applied for the Lilly Endowment’s College and Community Collaboration initiative but their project to bring a tech park and housing to Franklin was not selected.
The endowment last week announced that grants totaling more than $300 million would be given to 13 colleges and universities in Indiana to support community development projects aimed at improving quality of life. The five-year implementation grants range from $12.1 million to $32 million each, with DePauw University in Greencastle landing the largest grant.
Endowment officials say grants were “designed to encourage Indiana’s colleges and universities to work closely with community stakeholders to envision and jointly undertake significant community development efforts to create more vibrant places in which to live, learn, work and play.”
Getting the grant would have “put the project on steroids,” Franklin College President Kerry Prather said. However, the college’s tech park ambitions and work with the city to get it off the ground predate the grant application. This means it will continue without it, he said.
“The way we have chosen to think about this from the very beginning is that the project’s going to go forward, regardless of what happens with this particular grant opportunity,” Prather said. “But it would have kind of put the project on steroids, both in pace and scope. It would have been very helpful, but it certainly will not sink the project.”
The Franklin College Innovation Park will be a mixed-use development on approximately 250 acres on the north side of Park Avenue/Greensburg Road and west of Umbarger Lane/County Road 450 East. It will be designed for a mix of uses including research and development, light industrial and office uses. An array of housing including both single-family and multi-family is planned to support those uses, plans provided to the city show.
College stakeholders thought the project was a good candidate for the grant. It demonstrates collaboration with the city and would fulfill local needs such as improving the local talent pipeline, providing college students with job training, bringing high-tech jobs to the southside and adding housing types the city currently lacks.
“The concept initially emanated from taking a look at what Purdue, University of Cincinnati, and some other big schools have done in attracting industry partners to their campuses,” Prather said. “We have a commitment to truly engaged, immersive learning — to [providing] as much hands-on experience as we can get students. That’s how we teach, and that’s how we deliver the product at Franklin College.”
Because the endowment doesn’t provide feedback on competitive grants, the college won’t know why the grant wasn’t approved for funding, Prather said. Though this grant wasn’t approved, the college has received significant support from the endowment in the past, he said.
“The important thing is the Lilly Endowment has been so incredibly generous to higher ed over the years, throughout Indiana, including Franklin College,” he said.
There are still plenty of chances to get funding aside from this grant. The college is working on or has submitted grant proposals to “all levels of government” and several different foundations, Prather said.
The college has also worked with the city on an application for funding from Indiana’s READI 2.0 matching grant program. The READI grant will fund $1 million toward infrastructure development to prepare the site for construction, with half of the match coming from the city and half from state, Prather said.
The project will likely go forward at a slower pace than hoped as the college pieces together the funding to lay the groundwork for the project. The pace will also depend on attracting businesses that will occupy the tech park and developers that will bring housing projects.
Prather said there is interest from several different companies, but those talks are still confidential at this point. He described the companies as “impressive” and “high-tech.”
The college and the city are also still awaiting a decision from the state legislature on designating 40 acres within the greater development as a certified tech park. With the support of Franklin College, companies that locate within the park would employ people in a high-tech incubator space while using resources from the college, such as students, a consultant for the city previously said.
The project is envisioned as a way to grow not just Franklin College, but also the city and Johnson County, Prather said. The hope is to be a catalyst to attract high-wage, high-tech jobs for the southside.
“Part of our goal here is to attract the kind of high-tech businesses that have not populated the southside, those that are predominantly downtown, in 16 Tech and on the northside,” Prather said. “So, we hope to be the match that lights the high-tech fire on the southside, and attracts businesses, really small to medium-sized businesses in the life sciences, in the tech sector, that see the advantages of that synergy with a college.”
