Umbarger Plaza honors the legacy of the family that operated Umbarger Show Feeds in downtown Bargersville from 1939 until moving the business to Franklin in 2021. A long-term strategy envisions comprehensive downtown redevelopment. (IBJ photo/Chad Williams)
Although Bargersville’s population has more than tripled since 2010, downtown has changed little in decades. (IBJ photo/Chad Williams)
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Bargersville’s recent growth spurt has been rapid, but town officials say they want to be methodical in their planning for what comes next.
The Johnson County town about 18 miles south of downtown Indianapolis has seen its population more than triple from about 4,000 residents in 2010 to an estimated 13,000 today. Bargersville could reach 25,000 residents by 2035, according to town officials, and more than 1,300 houses are in the pipeline to be built over the next 36 months.
Former farm fields are covered in residential developments with houses of a size and price once reserved primarily for the northern suburbs. That includes the exclusive Aberdeen neighborhood built by Bargersville-based Duke Homes Inc. Home prices there can reach $2 million.
“We have some people that are escaping the high traffic out on the north side,” said Mike Duke, owner of Duke Homes and a ninth-generation resident of the town. “There’s a lot of people that are from this area and just want to stay in this area.”
To prepare for the future, town leaders are looking at all aspects of Bargersville’s next phase of growth.
That means considering ideas for a transformed downtown, figuring out how many more large single-family subdivisions make sense and developing plans for commercial growth, especially near a new Interstate 69 exit at State Road 144.
Town Manager Dax Norton told IBJ he has three focuses for the town when it comes to directing and managing growth: ensuring that infrastructure stays ahead of growth, making sure growth is sustainable, and remaining flexible to economic conditions and to changing state laws, such as those pertaining to property taxes.
“We are not growing in Bargersville just for the sake of growth,” Norton said. “We want a very sustainable community. Growth is necessary, especially in our current economic climate, in the current climate of policy from the state. We understand growth will happen, because we’re a very desirable community.”
For most of its existence, Bargersville was a small, rural farming community at the intersection of state roads 135 and 144. But large annexations from 2005 to 2011 expanded the town from 2.2 square miles to 18.77 square miles.
Now, its location makes it a prime spot for growth in Johnson County.
It provides easy access to jobs in Bloomington and Indianapolis via the I-69 interchange that opened two years ago. And S.R. 135 becomes Meridian Street in Marion County, providing a straight shot north to Indianapolis.
While the median age in Indiana has been rising over the past few decades, in Bargersville, it’s falling. The town’s median age decreased from 38.3 years in 2021 to 35.4 years in 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Meanwhile, the town’s median household income two years ago was $104,160—far and away the highest in Johnson County and in line with suburban communities on the north side of the metropolitan area.
“That tells me the youth are graduating from college, becoming professionals, and they’re starting their professional life here,” Norton said.
A plan for downtown
Downtown Bargersville looks much as it has for decades.
Like many small-town downtowns, it has locally owned shops and restaurants, a town hall, a police department and a post office. Railroad tracks cross through downtown, and grain elevators and silos tower over Main Street.
But over the next decade, Bargersville leaders look to transform the town from a bedroom community to one where residents have no need to leave. Last month, members of the Bargersville Town Council approved the 45-page Bargersville Downtown Redevelopment Plan, drafted by Indianapolis-based Browning Day.
Norton said town leaders realized they needed an overall plan after Pulte Homes of Indiana LLC approached the community last year with designs for a project with 3,200 houses on more than 800 acres north of downtown. Pulte’s plan is currently tabled.
“We knew that they were a little bit ahead of our vision,” he said. “We had really no ground-level vision of the expansion of our downtown.”
The downtown plan will not likely come to fruition exactly as it is designed. However, it provides a road map for developers who want to work with the town to develop and redevelop 150 acres that includes the existing downtown and a planned northern expansion, as well as 1,800 acres of farmland south and east of downtown.
“It’s really kind of our North Star of what we would like to see in the community,” Town Council President James Pheifer said.
He said the plan helps provide developers “perspective on exactly what it is we’re looking to attract and build in the town.”
In addition to a concept for downtown, the plan provides a vision for a transformed S.R. 135 corridor, which Norton described as “an enhanced and stretched-out version of the Carmel arts district.”
“We don’t want developers to drive the vision,” he said. “We want them to have to fit their projects into ours.”
Plan details
A diagram for a possible future downtown Bargersville shows multifamily and single-family housing, a community center, mixed-use retail buildings, a hotel, medical offices, an entertainment area, a regional stormwater pond and a potential residential/commercial/industrial corridor.
The plan also calls for the redevelopment of Bargersville Town Hall, the former Umbarger Show Feeds facilities and other downtown buildings. Umbarger Show Feeds, established in Bargersville in 1939 by Roy Umbarger, moved to Franklin in 2021.
The plan also recommends a northern expansion of Baldwin Street, a major north-south downtown roadway. Umbarger Plaza, which opened last year as an outdoor gathering space, could be expanded.
In total, the downtown plan suggests 1,080 multifamily units, 326 town houses, 51 single-family houses and 50 other residential properties—such as duplexes and fourplexes—could be built. It calls for more than 230,000 square feet of retail space, 87,120 square feet of “live and work” space, 20,000 square feet of cultural space and 10,000 square feet of civic space.
Nathan Huelsebusch, who opened Taxman Brewing Co. in Bargersville in 2014 with his wife, Leah, served on a steering committee that offered recommendations to Browning Day. He said the town is being mindful of its agricultural roots and will retain some landmarks, including at least one of the Umbarger grain silos.
The Huelsebusches, who moved to Bargersville from Belgium in 2011, also operate Pizza & Libations (a Neapolitan pizza restaurant), Cellar’s Market (a bakery and bottle shop) and Up Cellar (a steakhouse and wine bar).
“I love the idea. I love the plans,” Huelsebusch said. “I think, obviously, it’s a lot of work. It’s going to be a huge investment.”
The plan includes a financial study by Alabama-based Stone Financial Group that estimates the town would gain $408 million in new assessed value if downtown is redeveloped. Total public investment to build a new municipal building, extend Baldwin Street and expand Umbarger Plaza is projected at $22.1 million. Buildout would take 10 to 15 years.
Drew Braley, principal and vice president of Browning Day, suggested to Town Council members that the new municipal building could replicate the Fishers Arts & Municipal Complex, which includes City Hall, a theater and an art center.
“First and foremost was that all roads want to lead to [downtown], and it was important to authentically celebrate the railroad and the agricultural histories here in Bargersville, not to forget that, not to just kind of come in and do a plan that could be Anywhere USA,” Braley told councilors.
Density and industry
Norton said a new state law that limits how much local governments receive in property tax revenue means the town will need more mixed-use development with multifamily housing and fewer large, single-family subdivisions. Senate Bil l 1, signed into law this spring by Gov. Mike Braun, could result in local governments and schools statewide losing $1.5 billion in property tax revenue.
Norton said town leaders are thinking differently about density and the need for more people in less space.
“Senate Bill 1has caused us to completely rethink our planning efforts,” he said. “The density of the new downtown master plan becomes incredibly important. Probably a top priority for development.”
Also important will be the development of a commercial district near I-69 and S.R. 144.
A state constitutional amendment that voters approved in 2010 caps property tax bills at 1% of assessed value for owner-occupied homes, 2% for agricultural and other residential property, and 3% for commercial development.
Bargersville’s tax base is out of balance, with 93% of revenue coming from the 1% and 2% categories and just 7% coming from commercial development.
“We know that’s not sustainable,” Norton said.
The town’s goal now is to raise the ratio to 80%-20% by 2030. Norton, while executive director of the Boone County Economic Development Corp., worked with the town of Zionsville on its “80-20 by 2020” plan, which the town achieved in 2018. Norton also served as Whitestown’s town manager from 2013 to 2019.
As part of the effort to increase Bargersville’s commercial tax base, planning is underway for two projects near the I-69 interchange. Norton said commercial development near the interchange will focus on technology and life sciences companies, rather than logistics, truck stops and gas stations.
Just east of I-69 and south of S.R. 144, Aditi Real Estate 57 LLC is developing a 150-acre, mixed-use development called White River Crossing. The site is entirely within Bargersville town limits—the town annexed the land in 2010 in a play to bring the planned S.R. 144 interstate exit within its borders.
And on the other side of the interstate, at the southwest corner of the interchange, Fishers-based developer Meyer Najem is planning an 89-acre development that it’s calling the Bridgepoint Ag/Life Sciences Park. A portion of that site lies within Bargersville’s town limits, though most of it is in Morgan County.
Amanda Rubadue, vice president of economic development for Aspire Johnson County, the county’s economic development organization, said the vision for I-69 in Johnson County “is a continuation of what’s happening on the northern portion of the interstate” in Hamilton County.
“That whole interchange is just being very thoughtfully laid out,” Rubadue said. “We’re still kind of developing that picture of what that corridor will look like.”
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