By Angela Morefield
Milestone Contractors, an Indianapolis-based contracting and construction firm, will be moving its headquarters to Beech Grove. In addition, the city will be constructing a roundabout located at Emerson Avenue and Victory Drive.
Beech Grove Mayor Dennis Buckley announced the plans during a press conference held Oct. 22 at Beech Grove City Hall.
Milestone, with six offices in Indiana, will construct a new office on a portion of a 115-acre former rail yard off Emerson Avenue and Subway Street. Milestone will move its 110 employees at its Indianapolis office on South Belmont Avenue to the new location. The company will create 25 new jobs paying an average wage of $37.10 per hour, plus benefits. The company’s relocation to Beech Grove will be the first phase of redevelopment for the property formerly owned by freight rail and transport company CSX.
A subsidiary of The Heritage Group, Milestone will spend $11 million to build the new headquarters’ facility and maintenance hub that will include a 25,000-square-foot office and a 52,000-square-foot garage, according to documents from the Department of Metropolitan Development. Milestone received preliminary approval for a five-year abatement for 100 percent of its property taxes, excluding manufacturing equipment, from the Metropolitan Development Commission, Buckley said. The Beech Grove City Council approved a resolution in support of the abatement.
The company will take up 30-50 acres of the site for phase 1 redevelopment. Construction is expected to begin before the end of this year and conclude by the end of 2021.
City leaders are applying for funding from INDOT to construct the new roundabout near I-465. The announcement for the roundabout comes after increased accidents at Emerson Avenue and Victory Drive. INDOT has recently ranked the intersection the most dangerous in Marion County and the surrounding counties.
“They’re going to have to look into this. It’s gotten to the point where you just sit there, and a lot of people don’t even go on Emerson anymore. They go up 9th Avenue to Thompson Road and come across,” Buckley said. “Over the next five years the traffic in that area is going to increase by over 30 percent.”
The roundabout would be one of the busiest in Beech Grove, Buckley noted, and would help to ease traffic on both streets and prevent accidents.
Beech Grove was the first city in Marion County to have a roundabout, located at Sherman Drive and Albany Street.
