PENDLETON — Pendleton area residents will have a new place to get fit and play or watch sports by next spring, if an almost $14 million project is built, as proposed, at Falls Pointe Business Park.

Plans for a 115,000-square-foot sports and fitness, gymnastics and hospital wellness complex moved closer to reality after a recent Pendleton Redevelopment Commission meeting; the five-voting-member advisory board unanimously approved sending a $3.2 million incentive package to the Pendleton Town Council with a favorable recommendation.

The council will consider the matter at a meeting scheduled for 6 p.m. today (July 12).

“We really want to get this thing going — we were hoping to get a shovel in the ground in September,” said Mike Klipsch, a co-president and co-CEO of Klipsch-Card Athletic Facilities.

Klipsch and his business partner Andy Card own and operate Pacers Athletic Center at Grand Park in Westfield and are developing Finch Creek Fieldhouse in Noblesville, facilities of about 100,000 square feet and 150,000 square feet, respectively.

“This will be our third,” Klipsch said, referring to the Pendleton project, which is planned for a site south of the South Madison Community School Corp. administrative building. The facility is being called Community Sports and Wellness.

Klipsch said he would like to open in April or May of next year.

The facility’s design includes about 10,000 square feet of space operated by Community Hospital of Anderson, where there will be offerings such as wellness programs and classes, Klipsch said.

A much larger space is dedicated to sports and fitness activities. The plans include eight indoor tennis courts, gymnasium space for other sports, and room for other activities and classes, such as weight training and yoga.

Plans include a café and day care services.

They also include a new site for Anderson Gymnastics, which will move from the north side of Anderson and be renamed DeBertrand Gymnastics.

Klipsch said he believes there’s a need in the Pendleton area, as in Westfield and Noblesville, for such a facility.

Jeremy DeBertrand, co-owner of Anderson Gymnastics, said he’s been anticipating the move to Pendleton for about four years, ever since Community Hospital first approached him about the possibility.

“I’ve been dreaming about this for a long time,” he said.

The Anderson location has served the business well, DeBertrand said, but the new location — which will be close to the same size at about 14,000 square feet — will offer much more for customers.

“We are overwhelmed with excitement for all of our new equipment, air conditioning and getting a chance to meet so many new neighbors,” DeBertrand said.

He said the location, being just off the interstate, means customers who will have to drive farther won’t necessarily have to spend more time in the car; it will be a more pleasant drive, at faster speeds with less traffic and fewer stoplights.

He said he expects to grow the number of students — now at 300 to 400, depending on the season — to about 600 after three or four years.

The $3.2 million incentive package — which was worked out by Klipsch-Card, town manager Tim McClintick and Chad Wolfe, president of the town’s redevelopment commission and vice president of the town council — calls for a town contribution of 25 acres valued at $750,000. The town also will contribute $1 million toward construction costs and $1.45 million paid in 180 monthly installments of about $8,000.

The land, McClintick said, was part of a larger area given to the town free of charge by the Indiana Department of Corrections in 1999.

The 25 acres was being farmed and generating $125 per acre per year until it was taken out of the farm contract in anticipation of the Klipsch-Card project.

Wolfe called the incentive package a good deal for Pendleton, given that a conservative estimate produced by the town’s accounting firm, Umbaugh, shows the facility will generate more than $275,000 per year in property taxes beginning in 2021. That amount is projected to exceed the cost of financing the incentives, which end in early 2039.

Meanwhile, there are many benefits that begin almost immediately, Wolfe said.

“There’s a lot of development that follows it,” such as hotels and restaurants, he said, citing growth in the Westfield area after Grand Park opened.

Furthermore, all existing businesses should see spin-off benefits, he said.

“It puts consumers in the community,” Wolfe said.

Jessica Bastin, also a member of the redevelopment commission and town council, said it was a good way to get 25 acres of land owned by the town on the books and generating taxes.

Public hearing

Prior to the redevelopment commission meeting, Pendleton Town Council conducted a public hearing on an annexation of three properties in Foster Branch Woods subdivision, one parcel of which belongs to Wolfe.

Several people questioned whether it was appropriate to allow just a few homes to join the town, and whether the town would provide certain services, such as snow removal, and assume the corresponding costs. Council member Chet Babb said he was not in favor of the move because it was being rushed and there was no transparency in the action.

Town council President Bob Jones and town attorney Alex Intermill said at the hearing, as they did during at least one previous council meeting, that anytime property owner(s) bring a 100 percent voluntary annexation request to the town, where the request fulfills certain requirements, the town has no choice but allow it and process it in a reasonable time.

“We … by statute, have to respond to that,” Jones said.

“That’s the way the statute was written,” councilwoman Jessica Smith said.

Several property owners then asked about the process of being annexed and how they could expedite their own efforts to become part of the town.