By BRADEN LAMMERS
braden.lammers@newsandtribune.com
JEFFERSONVILLE — As one deal draws to a close, a second development has received the OK to move forward with construction on plans for a warehouse in the River Ridge Commerce Center.
Development plans for the warehouse — to be constructed at 800 Patrol Road — and a request for a wavier were both approved for a site at River Ridge by Jeffersonville’s Planning and Zoning Commission this week.
President of Crossdock Development Lee Wilburn, who owns the property and presented the plans Tuesday, said with the approval granted by the planning and zoning board, construction is expected to get in to full swing on the new site as soon as a pending deal is finalized.
The planned development will be located in between the Census Bureau building and the Amazon.com Inc. fulfillment center. It is planned to be constructed in two phases.
“We’re going to build a little over 300,000 [square] feet in the first phase,” Wilburn said. “The whole building will be 666,280 square feet. It could end up being a two-tenant building,” he said after his presentation. “[But] it’s designed as one large building to be built in two phases.”
Wilburn said the warehouse-style building will also be LEED gold certified for energy efficiency.
Features described included insulated walls, a reflective roof that will further insulate the building and skylights, with interior lights on sensors to react to the amount of natural light coming into the building to limit the site’s electrical use.
“We’ll have a very energy-efficient shell,” Wilburn said. “And that’s what the national [companies] who we build these buildings for are looking for. Most of these companies have sustainability requirements. It’s going to be quite a showcase, I think,” he said.
The building itself, once constructed, will only be a frame. The plans also called for a parking lot with 292 parking spaces, 137 truck docks and 155 trailer parking spots. In previously presented plans there were a larger number of parking spots and docks, but some reductions were made to plans.
With the size of the building being constructed and the number of shipping docks slated for the location, the expectation is the building will house either a distribution or manufacturing company.
“It would either be light assembly or distribution,” Wilburn said. “It would be suitable for a number of things because we’re just building a shell and we can build it out to any specification anybody would want.”
In addition to the development plan approval, the planning and zoning board agreed to grant Crossdock a waiver on the city’s minimum landscaping standards.
The city has a requirement that a developer shall plant a specific number of trees based on the size of the building. But it was argued because of the massive size of the structure the requirement is burdensome, hence the request for the waiver.
Director of Planning and Zoning Shane Corbin said similar landscaping waivers were granted to Amazon and America’s Place when those plans were presented to the board.
Although the approvals for both the plans and the waiver were granted Tuesday, construction is not expected to get into full swing until after another Crossdock property has been leased.
Wilburn said as soon as the 700 building — what is commonly referred to as the Census Building — is leased, the company will turn its attention to the 800 building.
He said a deal on the former Census Building is imminent.
“We have two different prospects for that [700] building and one of them may end up in this new one,” Wilburn said. “If 30 days from now we don’t have a deal on that thing I’d be surprised.”
Wilburn declined to comment on the companies interested in leasing either location.
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