By Sam Elliott

When a pair of ordinances were approved by the Fishers City Council May 16 requiring any new development along I-69 between 106th and 116th streets to go before the council for approval, they were designed to be temporary measures in effect for 120 days.

Those ordinances expire Sept. 12, but city leadership planned to introduce a new ordinance at the Aug. 15 city council meeting to update and streamline the corridor’s zoning and building standards.

“We’ll introduce something at the August council meeting and then work it through the process,” Fishers Deputy Mayor Leah McGrath said. “It would go to the plan commission in September and then hopefully back to the council in September as well. That’s the time frame we’re looking at to update those standards and zoning.”

Those standards and zoning will encourage the city’s vision for I-69 between 106th and 116th as a corporate corridor and job creator.

“We’re exited to have IKEA and TopGolf coming in, but we want to make sure that we maintain the vision of this corridor to really be a corporate corridor for our community and to make sure that it’s a key employment node for business office space and ultimately places for people who live in and around Fishers to work someday,” McGrath said. “In doing that, we wanted to take a look at the zoning to kind of make sure we raise the standards and make sure we’re getting the uses we want or don’t want in that area.

“We recognize that retail is a component of that and you need some degree of retail to help support the employment nodes, but we’re really focusing on that as a secondary use,” she added. “The retail that comes in needs to be supportive of the employment nodes there. We’re aren’t looking at more big-box retail; what we’re looking at is more thoughtful and well-planned opportunities.”