This and that: The one where Costco gets mentioned
Plus, an update on county restrictions on large solar projects. Artist picked for River Road gateway. Another step on an early childhood center in West Lafayette. And a growing BiL Holiday Playlist.
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Rounding up some This and That on a Thursday …
THE ONE WHERE COSTCO GETS MENTIONED …: A request to rezone 25 acres along County Road 50 West, just north of a planned $3.87 billion SK hynix high-bandwidth memory assembly plant, came with no firm commitments from property owners about what could be next for a site that remains in crop production now. Attorney Ryan Munden, representing the W.W. Schroeder Land Trust, told the Area Plan Commission Wednesday evening that the site has had interest for commercial projects, but nothing set, yet.
Munden said the point of asking to rezone the land from single-family residential uses there now to general business is to prepare for housing additions in the works just north of West Lafayette and address what he called “significant market demand.” He said there were few remaining commercial development opportunities along Sagamore Parkway West and no existing commercial nodes along that part of Salisbury Street/County Road 50 West north of Kalberer Road.
“The immediate area also offers some of the strongest household demographics in Tippecanoe County, which would support commercial development on this property,” Munden said.
What perked up ears, though, was support for the idea from Steve Schreckengast, a local homebuilder who has land across County Road 50 West from the property up for rezoning.
Schreckengast addressed concerns from APC staff, who had recommended denying the rezoning request because it wasn’t right in an area still ripe for residential uses, writing in a report: “With no specific use in mind and no proposed commitments, the speculative nature of the request provides little assurance to the community that a high intensity commercial zone like GB would be practical, let alone well-received, on this site.”
Schreckengast took issue with that assessment.
“When you do commercial development, you do not go out and spend the money to promote and market a site unless you know you can develop it,” Schreckengast said. “Let’s use the granddaddy of them all: Let’s say you want to get Costco there. You don’t go out, promote this to somebody like that, unless you know the zoning is in place.”
Wait, what? Costco?
Was that just an example of something often mentioned on development wish lists in the community or something floating out there, for real, on the wholesale warehouse chain?
Munden said that wasn’t something he’d heard and that, again, there were no firm plans for the site beyond getting it lined up for commercial possibilities.
To that end, the APC board voted 13-2 to recommend the rezoning request. Before the vote, Tom Murtaugh, a county commission who also serves on the APC board, said commissioners, before they make a final vote on the proposal, would ask the property owner for list of commitments about what would not be allowed to go on a commercial site there.
The zoning request will go to the Tippecanoe County commissioners for a final vote at 10 a.m. Jan. 5 at the County Office Building, 20 N. Third St. in Lafayette.
ALSO AT APC, A SOLAR ORDINANCE UPDATE: Potential revisions to Tippecanoe County’s zoning restrictions on utility-scale solar projects are expected to go before the APC’s Ordinance Committee for public hearings in March and April 2026, Ryan O’Gara, APC’s executive director, said Wednesday. He said that would put recommendations before the full APC board in April or May and to county commissioners by the first of June.
That’s about the time the county’s one-year moratorium on large-scale solar projects is scheduled to expire.
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