CLARKSVILLE — The Town of Clarksville celebrated the groundbreaking for a new industrial park on Wednesday that is being developed by Platform Real Estate Group.
Platform Park at 6905 Appleleaf Lane, Clarksville, is designed to support five industrial facilities with a total of 140 acres of land and 1,124,000 leasable square feet.
This groundbreaking was for the first building in the industrial park.
The first building coming to Platform Park will be a cross dock facility, making it a building for logistics or distribution type of company. It will be 336,000 square feet and is expected to be completed by August 2025.
With this first building starting construction, the second and third buildings are in the design phase. Platform Real Estate hopes to get these buildings started soon.
“(This will bring) jobs and growth,” said Mark Ruley, the vice president of development and construction at Platform Real Estate. “It brings a lot of opportunities for folks to work close to home and be in and work in an area they live and love.”
For the most part Clarksville is not an industrial community, said Kevin Baity, Clarksville’s town manager.
In Clarksville, there are about six small manufacturing companies including a gun parts manufacturer and a custom machine manufacturer.
“This facility with all the square feet that they’re going to add here will probably increase our manufacturing warehousing base by 90%,” Baity said. “This is a great investment that’s being made here in Clarksville.”
But the project has sparked controversy for some in the nearby Sellersburg community. Platform Park is on the border of the Clarksville and Sellersburg town limits and near many residents of Sellersburg.
In a story the News and Tribune published in July 2023, Charlie Smith, Sellersburg’s town manager, said that Sellersburg is not an industrial community, nor do they want to be one.
“When you bring in these logistic buildings, traffic is a 24/7 obstacle,” said Brad Amos, Sellersburg council member. “My biggest concern is the safety of the road and the width of that road.”
Amos is concerned that the road may not be able to handle the many tractor-trailers coming and going from the industrial park on Appleleaf Lane when it is finished.
“An 18-wheeler is not going to stop, they’re going to keep on going,” Amos said. “They’re going to get to their point of destination.”
He is also concerned about the noise that this industrial area could add due to its location.
“We’re doing our best to build a facility that will blend in,” Ruley said. “We’re leaving a lot for a tree buffer to reduce noise and make it a really attractive, beautiful park so that it’ll be as little of an impact on them as possible.”
“There were some (Sellersburg) residents that expressed concern for traffic, noise, light, different things like that,” Baity said. “I think all of those were addressed by the plan commission on the site design and layout of the project. You can’t please everybody 100% of the time. I think that the citizens that came and talked were heard.”
Despite his concerns, Amos is happy that Clarksville was able to land the project.
“It’s a great thing for Clarksville,” Amos said. “I congratulate Clarksville, I congratulate their TIF growth and the opportunity this brings for many of us in our communities.”
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