More warehouses could be coming to Merrillville, but some residents don’t want their holding company to get the tax abatements it wants in order to build.
The Town Council at its Monday night meeting ultimately voted 7-0 to approve first a zoning change to CIS Commercial Industrial from C-5 office on a parcel of land at E. 73rd Avenue and Mississippi Street, then a resolution approving a tax economic revitalization area for the parcel and a tax abatement for Crow Holdings Development. Crow Holdings is seeking to put three new warehouses on the property, and the zone change was approved 4-0, with three members absent, twice at the December 17 Plan Commission meeting, Planning Director Sheila Shine told the Council.
Acknowledging that he’s “not a councilman,” Clerk-Treasurer Eric January said putting more warehouses in the town shows “a lack of vision” when Merrillville can use more entertainment and “other things.” Because of its location – directly across from the property in Hobart on which a proposed convention center might be awarded – the land would become even more valuable than it already is, he said.
“It’s one of the last properties that is actually available on 1-65,” he said, to which Councilwoman Shauna Haynes-Edwards, D-2, asked him to clarify if there’s no other space for entertainment in the town.
“I have a question: That land has been sitting there pretty much dormant for 30 years, so in that time, couldn’t someone have come in with retail or restaurant?” Councilwoman Keesha Hardaway, D-7, said. “So now that someone somebody is actually about to buy it and put it back on the tax rolls for more than the $2,100 we’re currently getting (from the property), there’s a problem?”
Councilman Shawn Pettit, D-6, added that the woman who owned the property died and bequeathed it to another couple, who then decided to sell it because of the C-5 designation.
“We’re not in the position to tell landowners what they can do with their property,” he said, adding that Crow Holdings has made good on all its promises, including paying for new radios for the Merrillville Fire Department and bringing the largest warehouse in Northwest Indiana – Amazon – to Merrillville.
Crow Holdings Industrial Managing Director Matt Kurucz emphasized Pettit’s point that his company has done what it’s said it was going to do since 2019 when it first came to town. In the 18 months that Crow Holdings built its current warehouses, all the Ameriplex properties are now accounted for where they hadn’t been for the 11 years prior to them coming, for example.
Additionally, the town isn’t losing money with a tax abatement, nor does it raise taxes, he said.
Forty-year Merrillville resident Dan Brown, who serves as the town’s building inspector, said during public comment that he remembers when Merrillville was the very last town to give tax abatements. He sat and watched the town “do nothing” as a result.
“The reality is that that property is never going to get developed by anybody without a tax abatement,” he said. “I’ve lived in Lake County for 50 years, and guess what? Nothing has ever been on that property, so now, we have an opportunity to develop the property and prosper and reduce our taxes.”
Another resident, Amy Shollenberger, said that putting something on that property – especially truck traffic — would make traffic worse since there are already a lot of vehicle accidents there as it is.
“73rd is not a highway, and there are a lot of houses there, but not on Mississippi, and if we now have trucks going over that bridge – which they’re not supposed to – that bridge is going to collapse, which we don’t want either,” she said. “So not only will we have all these accidents, but we’ll have truck traffic, too.”
Resident Pablo Payan said that doing business with a company as big and wealthy as Crow Holdings could lead the council to think about its own interests rather than those of the town.
“This is a powerful company. I mean, they were able to buy Thomas Clarence, Supreme Court justice. You don’t think they’ll come and buy you guys?” he said, referring to gifts Crow Holdings founder Harlan Crow is said to have given U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas over the years, including renovations for his mother’s home and tuition for his grandnephew, according to a ProPublica investigation.
In other business, the Council voted 4-3 – with Haynes-Edwards, Councilwoman Leona Chandler, D-3, and Council Vice President Rhonda Neal, D-1, casting the dissenting votes — to retain Rick Bella as Council President over Haynes-Edwards while voting unanimously to keep Neal as vice president for 2025.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
