Duke Realty Takes Down 300 Acres for Mixed-Use Project

INDIANAPOLIS-Publicly traded Duke Realty Corp. has taken down the first 300 acres of a master-planned, 1,700-acre tract of land here that it expects to acquire and build out with a mix of uses over the next 15 years. The Boone County Commissioners gave final approval for the development in August, prompting the locally based office and industrial REIT to exercise its option for the southwest corner of the property, near the interchange of Interstate 65 and State Highway 334. The company has options for the additional 1,400 acres that extend through 2013. Master planned for Duke by Cooper Carrey, “Anson” is a concept that includes office, industrial, retail, medical and residential buildings, and several hundred acres set aside for green space, parks, trails, schools and other civic uses–all the components of a new town. The project will have over three miles of interstate frontage and two interchanges serving the site.Duke Realty’s chief executive Dennis Oklak says Anson is a unique opportunity for the company to develop all of its core product types in a single master-planned community. It also gives the company a stronghold along the I-65 corridor. Anson is about 10 miles down the I-65 corridor from Lebanon Business Park, where Duke has developed more than five million sf of industrial and distribution buildings in the past eight years. In addition, over the past 30 years, Duke has developed some 1,600 acres in Park 100 on the northwest side of the city.Anson will be worth upwards of $750 million upon completion, according to Duke, which did not release the cost of the first-phase land acquisition. Nationwide, Duke owns interests in more than 112 million sf of buildings and owns or controls over 3,700 acres of undeveloped land that could support 57 million sf of future development.