The proposed largest plant-based protein foods facility in North America is no longer slated for Shelbyville.

On Monday at City Hall, the Redevelopment Commission took back control of the 57 acres east of Interstate 74 where Greenleaf Foods, SPC, wanted to build a $310 million facility.

The April 2019 groundbreaking ceremony was attended by Governor Eric Holcomb. The project was expected to create as many as 460 jobs by the end of 2022.

“At this point, COVID-19 really killed that plant-based protein market,” said Shelbyville Mayor Tom DeBaun after Monday’s Common Council meeting. “If you do any research at all, you’ll find that 80% of that market died. For whatever reason, the pandemic really nailed the coffin on that project.”

The structure of the agreement with Greenleaf Foods was that if the project didn’t commence by a certain period of time, the Redevelopment Commission would get that land back, according to DeBaun.

“We exercised that provision in the contract and now we have the land back,” confirmed DeBaun.

The Greenleaf project is the second to fail on the desirable tract of land located east of the city along State Road 44.

In 2016, Krone announced it was moving its North American corporate headquarters from Memphis, Tennessee, to Shelbyville. Krone was to invest $12.5 million to build a 200,000 square-foot state-of-the-art facility in Shelbyville to feature a distribution center, showroom and training facility for the farm equipment manufacturer.

Construction on the facility was set to begin in spring of 2017.

“It was one of those things with Krone, the farm implement and farm machinery market tanked,” said DeBaun.

DeBaun does not anticipate the city rushing the property into another project without more forethought on its best use.

“I think it would be incumbent upon us now that we have the parcel again to do some master planning to really lay out what the concepts could look like on that parcel and do a little more pre-development planning,” said DeBaun. “I think that would make it easier to market and more desirable for all parties. I think the next step on that once we receive quiet title is to do some pre-developmental planning.

“We will have a consultant come in. We will lay out different configurations on what the acreage could look like if it is divided into certain parcels. It will give us a better idea of distribution of utilities and all the infrastructure on site. I think it will make it more ‘shovel ready.’”

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