ICON warehouse a hopeful athletics facility

The former Icon Warehouse Building, owned by Indiana State University, will eventually be used for athletic facilities; if all goes according to plan.

"The building was purchased in 2009 by the ISU Foundation and was given as a gift to the university," said Diann McKee, vice president of business affairs, finance and university treasurer.

Plans for the athletic complex development include a soccer field, football stadium, track and field surfaces and a softball stadium.

Kevin Hoolehan, executive vice president of the ISU Foundation, said that the building was bought and the deed was transferred directly to the school.

The purchase was made to have the property in the university's possession for President Daniel J. Bradley's Campus Master Plan, which was approved by the ISU Board of Trustees in December of 2009 and is an online document at indstate.edu/president.

"The future vision is to develop and relocate the athletic facilities," said McKee. "We were planning to acquire that land, and the property became available, so it was bought."

No maintenance is being done to the building because demolition is being scheduled, McKee added.

The warehouse has served various purposes during the last 90 years. In the 1920s, it was the American Can Company, and in the 1980s, the building was converted and occupied by the Pillsbury Company. After Pillsbury vacated the building, it became the warehouse for the Icon Company, a trucking firm. Icon shut down the warehouse in the early 2000s, said Hoolehan.  

"The purchase was important to the university and community," Hoolehan said. "Eventually it will become part of campus and part of the ‘riverSCAPE' project."

The "riverSCAPE" project is a development plan headed by the city of Terre Haute and Vigo County to create a multipurpose park east of the Wabash River. The goal is to use "large tracts of underutilized land" for "riverfront redevelopment planning activities," according to President Bradley's campus Master Plan.

ISU owns other small satellite properties in the same vicinity of the warehouse. However, the majority of buildings that have been purchased is needed by the university to fully develop the planned athletic facilities. The estimated time for the completed facilities will be in the next 10 to 15 years, said McKee.

This student-written, faculty-edited story appears in the Indiana Statesman courtesy of the Indiana State University Communication Department.