Indiana budget panel to consider $88M to expand LEAP District plans
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The State Budget Committee on Tuesday will consider spending $88 million to expand a Boone County development project that’s expected to include a research facility for Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical giant Lilly.
The committee’s meeting will come days after Lilly announced it plans to more than double its investment in the research facility. The facility will be part of the Limitless Exploration/Advanced Pace (LEAP) Research and Innovation District in the city of Lebanon.
The state government’s Indiana Economic Development Corp. has asked the committee to “repurpose” $59 million of the $100 million previously allocated to an effort with the code name “Project Nora.” The money would be used to buy another 2,500 acres to support three unspecified projects for the LEAP district. Once the state buys the land, it will be resold to the investors.
The development corporation also wants to “repurpose” $29 million of the $100 million previously allocated to “Project Nora” for road and utility work and other infrastructure to support five projects, including the Lilly facility, in the LEAP district. The other four projects were not specified.
The two “repurpose” proposals are listed as coming from the Deal Closing Fund of the state’s General Fund.
David Ricks, chair and chief executive officer of Lilly, said May 24 during the Indiana Global Economic Summit that the pharmaceutical company was expanding its spending on the Boone County project by $3.5 billion. That would bring Lilly’s total investment to $9 billion.
In May 2022, Lilly first announced its plans to invest $2.1 billion and create up to 500 new jobs in Lebanon. At the Lebanon groundbreaking in April 2023, Lilly announced an additional $1.6 billion investment and 200 new jobs at the Boone County site.
The larger Lilly facility is expected to create what has been called nearly 1,000 “high-wage” jobs in Boone County.
The latest “repurpose” proposals going before the budget committee note the state’s investments will “result in tens of billions of dollars in capital investment and nearly 10,000 jobs being created in the coming years.”
The LEAP project has drawn criticism for a proposal to draw water from other parts of west-central Indiana and move it to the district. As a result, in November, Gov. Eric Holcomb called for more data collection on the proposal to draw and move water. That data effort was expected to be completed in autumn 2024.
The budget committee will meet starting at 9 a.m. Tuesday in Senate Appropriations Room 431 of the Indiana Statehouse in downtown Indianapolis.
Below is from a document of the development/concept plan for the first phase of the LEAP Project in Boone County, Indiana. (Provided Image/Lebanon City Council.
