Shown is an artist's rendering of the new Domino's production/warehouse facility in the AmeriPlex at the Crossroads development in Merrillville. Staff photo by John J. Watkins
MERRILLVILLE — A groundbreaking for a $50.3 million Domino’s supply chain center was easy Friday for Gov. Eric Holcomb and a group of state and local dignitaries.
ARCO Construction workers already had worked the soil to a fine clay dust in which Holcomb and the group sunk ceremonial shovels.
Holcomb spoke Friday before a backdrop of earthmovers and Interstate 65 traffic.
“When people think of Indiana manufacturing, they think of steel, RVs and limestone. Today, we add Domino’s pizza dough to our recipe, because we both know how to deliver,” Holcomb said.
The 61-year-old Ann-Arbor, Michigan, fast-food chain is building a 111,734-square-foot processing facility in the northeast corner of the AmeriPlex Crossroads business park.
The facility, which is expected to be complete by the end of 2022, will supply pizza ingredients to Domino’s locations around Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Richard Allison, Domino’s CEO, thanked the governor and other state and local officials “for making this so easy.”
The governor in his turn thanked Domino’s for choosing Indiana over any number of potential sites in the Midwest.
Merrillville Town Councilman Shawn Pettit welcomed Allison to Merrillville and thanked him for “union construction jobs, which were promised through the tax abatement granted to Domino’s. This represents 144 jobs and a $7.7 million payroll.”
The town issued the building permit this week for the structure, which will have room to expand on 15.2 acres.
Domino’s will become only the latest tenant in the AmeriPlex business park, which began 20 years ago as a technology research campus and has expanded to a mixed-use business park.
Karen Lauerman, president and CEO of Lake County In Economic Alliance, said AmeriPlex is now an incubator not just for research but also for “state-of-the-art food production and distribution.
“I see additional development and new companies looking for a location in a Class A business park like this one,” she said
AmeriPlex is home to an Ivy Tech Community College, Pinnacle Healthcare Hospital and Vibra Hospital, as well as an Amazon delivery station, Dawn Food Products, Pro-Fab Sheet Metal, Midwest Tire, Horizon Financial Management and the Pipefitters Union.
AmeriPlex is only the northernmost part of a booming corridor between Broadway and I-65, where former cornfields now grow restaurants, supermarkets, a hotel, hospitals and a mix of retail business in both Merrillville and Crown Point.
Merrillville Town Manager Pat Reardon concluded there is more to come.
“Merrillville has on the board a quarter of a billion dollars in development in the next two years," Reardon said.
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