Written by Johnathon Shaffer / Sports editor and Aubree Amback / Staff Writer
New Palestine town council leaders have decided to start working on expanding the city by creating a new town center. They will be adding a Kroger grocery store, as well as an amphitheater, an apartment building, a park, and new restaurants. It will have more of a main street feel to it, as well as incorporating expansions past the former town limits.
“The heart town was primarily down here where Town Hall is, the school that goes back to the 1830s. But the incorporated limits have changed, so we need to kind of grow into that,” town manager Jim Robinson said.
Discussing the aforementioned new town center, Robinson goes into high detail about what exactly will be added with the main street additions. The town center will include a park, pickleball courts, a new town hall, an apartment complex, and a new amphitheater.
“We’re just trying to do a better job of creating a new main street. And this is something that everybody looks at New Palestine. A lot of people say, ‘Oh, we don’t want it to grow,’ but, you know, it is going to grow, you can’t stop that,” Robinson said.
There is also an expansion to the town, in the area behind the Hancock Wellness Center, in what Robinson calls a “business park”. This may include businesses such as Kroger, which would be in competition with Needlers.
“If Kroger comes in here and does a study and they say, ‘hey, we’re looking at, 20-25,000 people in the township,’ and grocery stores like that bring in people from like Franklin, maybe the east side, all over, you know, they’re more of a destination. So, whether Needlers stay in business there or they change their business plan, that’s up to the market there,” Robinson said.
Papa Johns will be added to the business park expansion as well, adding another pizza restaurant to New Palestine, which may frustrate some residents. However, Robinson asserts that this addition will be a fruitful venture.
“If you look at the pizza places we have, Y-Not Pizza. It’s a great pizza, but it’s more of a bar setting. You look at the other pizza place, Pizza Hut, which is another big chain, being a drive up, and that’s the same with Papa John’s, they’re more of a drive up. But they feel the market is strong enough and people, a lot of people like Papa John’s, so it’s a quick pick up and take home,” Robinson said.
As for the amphitheater addition, Robinson also adds that, other than a small, circumstantial venue, the town doesn’t have a major event center, and needs a main center for events, such as concerts.
“If you go to Greenfield Depot, like on Fridays and Saturday nights, there’s those large venues, they have the restaurants and stuff, and it brings out a lot of people. We use the one here on Depot, we call it a little Fleck Street. The town owns the street. They own the little building, but we don’t own the property behind it, nor do we own the property that the school has, you know, where everybody sits. The school’s been gracious to allow us to have that, although there’s no tobacco, no alcohol allowed, and I’m okay with that. But we just need a bigger venue that if the school ever decides to take that away, we’re not caught shorthanded that we don’t have a venue to go to. And those venues, they bring out the community that we kind of lack,” Robinson mentioned.
If residents of the town have further questions about this massive plan, Robinson refers them to the town hall meetings conducted.
“All our town hall meetings, they’re advertised, they’re put in the paper, we put them on the board, they’re on our website, but nobody comes,” Robinson said.
Robinson also mentions that issues can, and have, arise from the lack of communication.
“The only time somebody gets upset is when they see it on Facebook, like a lot of people didn’t like Starbucks coming, because it was going to run the small mom and pop shops in, and don’t want to get rid of that small town feel, but those were all discussed through meetings at town hall, and nobody showed up,” Robinson said.
