Just over 90 acres of land west of Warsaw will be purchased to expand the Warsaw Technology Park at a price of $2 million. The purchase, approved Monday night by the Warsaw Common Council via an appropriation of the funds, is to be finalized in October.

City planner Jeremy Skinner asked the city to appropriate an additional $550,000 for the purchase, which has been in the works for about 18 months. The money was appropriated from the Northern TIF fund and will make the purchase possible.

The 90-plus acres includes 28 acres of wetlands that will be used for water retention.

According to Skinner, once the purchase is finalized with the blessing of the Warsaw Redevelopment Commission, which is expected to come during its Oct. 8 meeting, groundbreaking for a shell building will happen in the spring. “We’re very fortunate to have this opportunity as a community to put together this agreement that will allow us to develop this industrial park,” Skinner said. “Obviously the city will be putting in some infrastructure … we’ll also be putting in sanitary sewer, water, fiber optics and so forth so that this is a true shovel-ready industrial park.”

At a minimum, per the agreement with West Hill Developments, there will be a 40,000 square foot shell building constructed on the property that will be expandable up to 80,000 square feet. That shell building is to be completed by the end of 2014 and is preliminarily planned to occupy about 10 acres south of West 300 North nearly centered between 150 West and 200 West.

The city is also in discussions with Ivy Tech to extend Polk Drive from behind Ivy Tech at North 150 West to North 200 West for access to the technology park. Some additional plans will include shifting current entrances to Medtronics to try to resolve staggered accesses utilizing the one center turn lane.

City officials call the pending land purchase and infrastructure plans “critical” to provide more wealth to the city and future vitality to keep the county growing. “Economic development is a leader for all of the community,” said common councilman Charlie Smith, who also serves on the Warsaw Redevelopment Commission.

“The $40 some million is purely just in the buildings. That does not even come close to telling the true story of the jobs it creates … This certainly will go a long way to sustain Warsaw in the future,” added Skinner.

Following the unanimous vote to allow the appropriation for the property purchase, council members smiled and clapped. Mayor Joe Thallemer simply said, “Whew! Now the work starts.”

The council will meet again in regular session at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 8. The meeting was changed from Monday night to accommodate the mayor’s schedule. Also on the Oct. 8, the Warsaw Redevelopment Commission is expected to vote to approve the $2 million land purchase.