Hancock County, Indiana, founded in 1828 and one of many American counties named to honor American founding father John Hancock, is drawing ever closer to its 200th anniversary. The Hancock Economic Development Council (HEDC) recently celebrated its own milestone of 40 years, launched in 1985 and still going strong. Hancock has always been a rural county at heart, so the council was created by a group of business and government leaders who wanted to ensure the county had a bright and diverse economic future while staying true to its nature.
The council became the first contact for businesses considering moving to the area, and it found early success, drawing significant manufacturing operations to Hancock in the 1990s such as manufacturing heavyweight Avery Dennison and automotive supplier Astemo.
Mitchell Kirk, HEDC’s Communications Director for three years now, says it has been rewarding for him and everyone on the council to watch their boardroom grow. Today, the council supports 45 member organizations across public, private, and nonprofit sectors, the greatest number in its history so far.
Hancock County’s strong agricultural and rural heritage is a draw for a number of businesses that wish to grow outward from Indianapolis. Pharmaceutical companies Eli Lilly and Elanco Animal Health had presences in the county for decades, along with local farms and a strong manufacturing sector. Hancock has also been one of the fastest-growing counties in Indiana for the past three years, with a 2.4 percent population gain last year to more than 90,000 residents. Development is also on the rise, with 1,268 single-family building permits issued last year, a 27 percent increase over the previous year.
Since 2019, HEDC has helped foster the development of 33 industrial buildings spanning a total of over 18 million square feet and $900 million in assessed value. The bulk of these buildings have been designed for logistics purposes, for which the western part of the county is particularly well-suited thanks to its abundant farmland and access to the interstate. One such project was a 2.3 million-square-foot fulfillment center for Wal-Mart—the largest built in the country at that time—so the council has definitely been kept on its toes in recent years.
Kirk explains that many of the aforementioned 33 industrial buildings were built on spec since 2019; with the pandemic, however, a big wrench was thrown into attracting tenants for these buildings. Thankfully, industrial vacancy rates in the area are decreasing, a spike in activity that is giving brokers further confidence in filling future buildings.
Although they may all have similar goals, Kirk says that economic development organizations are different from place to place. While some are more engaged in the minutiae of smaller operations, like restaurants or retail, HEDC concerns itself with quality of life (although recruitment into the local workforce is always important, too). “As the county grows, we are also able to grow and get more involved,” he says.
Indeed, HEDC has been able to grow in step with Hancock County, building its staff from just a full-time Executive Director and one part-time employee to four full-time employees. This staff increase has given the team the capacity to tackle bigger projects and take a more proactive approach to the county’s economic development. As well, its Community Development Manager is highly engaged with aspects such as housing, quality of life, and resident amenities. People used to follow jobs, Kirk says, but nowadays, many jobs follow people, and they often decide where to live based on these qualities, which is where the focus of HEDC has consistently remained.
A couple of long-term projects have been key to the council’s recent successes. The State Road 9 Innovation Corridor is an ongoing project that is envisioned as a lab-to-field-to-market ecosystem, one that will connect resource entrepreneurship with real-world application in a rural setting. The area for the corridor will be along the eponymous road on the north side of Greenfield and north to the county border.
Currently, the former Elanco property is owned by a partnership of local entities including Hancock Health, NineStar Connect, and Pride Investment Partners, all of which are working with HEDC on opportunities to establish the area as an anchor for the Corridor. Furthermore, a task force of local and state leaders and experts was recently created with the goal of further crafting this vision to accelerate area growth, and HEDC helped land an operation from West Pharmaceuticals near the Corridor.
The Amplify Hancock Innovation Center is another exciting development for HEDC that will soon take shape. It will be a facility containing a career center for high school students as well as workforce training for adults, opening in summer 2026. Kirk says that the Innovation Center bodes well for the local workforce and has attracted site selectors and businesses who are considering the area. Hancock County also has a mega site of over 1,550 acres, an area with a lot of potential. “We are excited for the potential of data centers, manufacturing operations, and a lot of undeveloped farmland,” says Kirk.
Opportunities like the Corridor and the Innovation Center are coming at an exciting time for Hancock County and HEDC, Kirk tells us. One recent opportunity came when the governor of Indiana, Mike Braun, announced a $1 billion state commitment to accelerate growth in the life sciences sector statewide, with the goal of creating 100,000 jobs over 10 years. There is also interest from local and state parties in considering Indiana and its counties part of the BioHeartland, a term used for Indiana’s unified bioscience ecosystem. This initiative is looking to create an identity and story based on the region’s unique strengths such as human/animal health, plant science, and bioscience innovation, one that will further attract new businesses and entrepreneurs.
With increased interest in data centers and manufacturing operations around Indiana, Kirk says that power and electricity for these massive operations will be a key consideration; of course, this is the case everywhere. Governor Braun is keeping an eye on the issue and has expressed interest in alternatives like developing small nuclear reactors as a potential energy source. And HEDC’s Community Development Manager has been working on a retail study with a consulting firm and with county leaders to identify gaps in the market and the best strategies for filling them.
HEDC isn’t afraid of a challenge, and the team is keen to educate community members who are not as favorable toward the kind of development it is seeking. Kirk says that this kind of pressure from concerned parties often pushes things toward a good compromise for all sides, but you never want the pendulum to push too far one way. “Growth is necessary for an area to flourish,” he says, and thus HEDC aims to continue representing the best aspects of growth, change, and opportunity for many years to come.
