McCordsville leaders are looking to Phase 2 of McCord Square.
McCordsville leaders are looking to Phase 2 of McCord Square.
In its first meeting of 2026 last week, McCordsville Redevelopment Commission had a lot on its plate to discuss.

A busy 2025 in the town included renovations to Old School Park, the beginning of refurbishment to the former community firehouse and the approval of a new comprehensive plan. Now, 2026 looks to continue the momentum, even as financial factors from last year’s Senate Enrolled Act 1 begin to affect McCordsville.

House Bill 1001 would negatively impact McCordsville, town manager says

One of the Republican majority’s priority bills during this year’s Indiana General Assembly session is House Bill 1001. The intent of the bill is to close the housing affordability gap in the state by investing around $75 million in housing construction around the state, while also limiting local regulations, such as imposing exterior design elements on homes.

The bill passed the House at the end of January, and will be heard Wednesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

McCordsville town manager Tim Gropp told the redevelopment commission at its Feb. 10 meeting that if the bill passes the Senate and is signed into law, it would lessen the power the town’s zoning requirements would have on developers.

Gropp, alongside the fellow town managers and planners of Fortville, Cumberland and New Palestine, released a statement earlier this month stating their opposition to HB 1001.

He said if the bill passed, the town’s Architectural Review Committee, which reviews building plans for conformity for the town’s development standards, would likely be obsolete.

“Basically if it’s zoned residential, we can’t tell you setbacks. We can’t tell you density. We can’t make you add little windows or anything like that that might make it effective,” Gropp said. “We really would lose a lot of leverage on getting the kind of development that we want in our community.”

Gropp challenged the idea the bill would help with affordable housing, claiming the bill would allow developers to pack more houses in on smaller areas of land and build the houses more cheaply, without charging renters or buyers less, and would cause existing taxpayers to pay for new development.

“They (would be) making more money and causing problems for your schools, and causing problems for our infrastructure,” he said.

The bill’s author, Rep. Doug Miller (R-Elkhart), is a property manager himself, and represents Indiana on the board of directors for the National Association of Homebuilders. In a press release, Miller said the bill eliminates unnecessary design requirements and makes it easier to renovate commercial buildings to housing units.

“We want to help more Hoosiers and families achieve the American Dream of owning a home,” Miller said. “We want to support our growing communities and make it easier and affordable to build a life in Indiana.”

Update on McCord Square Phase 2

Late last year, Gropp shared an update with the redevelopment commission about the second phase of development for McCord Square. At the meeting, Gropp said there are six additional lots awaiting construction for the McCord Square project, including a potential new town hall for McCordsville.

Currently, McCord Square consists of an apartment complex with some ground-floor businesses, an IU Health primary care office, a NineStar Connect office, a Libby’s Ice Cream location and the McCordsville Police Department station. This year, Vernon Township Public Library plans to open a second location on the second floor of the NineStar building.

The original plan was for the second phase of McCord Square to start construction in April, backed by an $8.35 million master development draw bond in coordination with the other developers for the project. However, Gropp said the town would be lucky to break ground in the summer.

He said this is because the developers were looking at an $8 million bond, while the town wanted the bond to be somewhere in the $6 million range. He believes there will be a deal for a bond, but it is just down to working out the cost of the bond and getting a structure so that all sides are comfortable with it.

“We really need the second wave to go because we need some momentum in it,” Gropp said. “We need some restaurants, bars, we need some night life to get going in there so that we can get a little more momentum. We have some nice early developments, but my frank opinion is the initial wave of retail was not really great for attracting people to stay there.”

Meanwhile, commission member Dale Needleman asked if one option is to split up the bonds between the different developers and projects, touching on Gropp’s point that he wants more restaurants in the area.

“I know you don’t want to do a bunch of separate projects, but would it make sense to break out one building to try to get a restaurant in there to solve this problem?” he asked.

Gropp said the project might be split up into different bonds because the projects are moving at different speeds. He wanted to do one bond to make it easier for the town, but if the process becomes too complicated, he might come back to the RDC to consider multiple bonds for phase 2.

Gropp said 2026 will be a “packed year” with the most capital projects the town has had. These projects include developing a five-year master plan for the parks department, a five-year master plan for the town’s sewer system, adding capacity to the intersection of Broadway (Ind. 67) and County Road 600 West (U.S. 36), installing a traffic light in front of McCordsville Elementary School and making several lane adjustments across town.

“We’re just trying to balance it all trying to make sure we’re making sound decisions and thinking about the future,” he said.

Last week’s meeting was the first meeting for new RDC member Byron Hardie, who replaces former RDC president Alex Jordan. Hardie has lived in Indiana since 2015, and is currently the chief digital officer and head of growth strategy at Indianapolis Business Journal.
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