October 2, 2026 · Tippecanoe · Johnson · Clark · Porter · NIPSCO

Indiana Industrial Assessed Value Jumps 25.8% Ahead of 2027 Tax Bills

Indiana industrial assessed value rose 25.8% for 2027 taxes. See how the TIF depreciation floor, Amazon Greenwood hiring, and NIPSCO outages affect your plant.

Daniel BurkePublished every day

Indiana's industrial assessed value is up 25.8% for taxes payable in 2027, more than three times the 7.3% increase on the residential side, and that gap means a larger share of the local property tax levy could land on manufacturers in counties that haven't hit the 3% circuit-breaker cap. Andrew Berger, President and CEO of the Indiana Manufacturers Association, cited the data in a September 24 commentary in the Indiana Capital Chronicle. Two more developments this week land on the same budget: Amazon's new robotics plant in Greenwood, and a derecho that shut down a Porter County shop floor for weeks.

01Statewide

Indiana Industrial Assessed Value Surge Leaves a TIF Depreciation Gap

Berger ties the increase to factory growth, reclassified farmland, and the first update to industrial construction cost tables in four years. New base on the tax roll doesn't raise the bill on your existing plant by itself, and rates and levies get recalculated as values rise.

For the huddle: Are we sitting inside a TIF district, and if so, are we now locked into the 30% depreciation floor on new equipment while non-TIF competitors get the full benefit of SB 1's relief?

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02Johnson

Amazon's Greenwood Robotics Plant Will Recruit Your Welders and CNC Operators

Amazon is putting more than $100 million into a 585,000 square foot robotics plant at 1175 Collins Road in Greenwood, Johnson County, its fourth U.S. robot-making facility. The company has committed to 300 jobs averaging nearly $100,000 by the end of 2028, a figure that includes manufacturing engineers and program managers alongside welders, CNC operators, and powder coating technicians.

For the huddle: With Amazon now building its own robotics supply chain in our backyard, are we still dependent on the same automation OEMs Amazon is moving away from, and should we be diversifying our robotics vendor relationships now?

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03Porter

Derecho and NIPSCO Outage Cost Konrady Plastics a Month of Overtime

The August 11 derecho left more than 290,000 NIPSCO customers in Northwest Indiana without power and shut down Konrady Plastics' Portage shop floor, in Porter County, for weeks. CEO Leah Konrady told the National Association of Manufacturers that competitors in Chicago, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati covered her orders with overtime and spare equipment time while the plant was dark.

For the huddle: Do we have backup power sized for the actual shop floor (not just the office) and do we have mutual-aid relationships with regional competitors the way Konrady did, in case of a multi-week outage?

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04Tippecanoe

SEL's $25M West Lafayette Expansion

Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL), headquartered in Pullman, Washington, is investing $25 million to expand its only Indiana plant at 1838 State Road 26 in the Purdue Discovery Park District, adding PCB assembly, SMT, electronic assembly, and conformal coat lines. The project boosts recloser-control production capacity by more than 35%, adds roughly 130 jobs on top of the facility's current 211 employees, and targets completion in March 2027.

For the huddle: If recloser-control lead times tighten as utilities race to interconnect Indiana's data center buildout, are we positioned to benefit from faster grid upgrades near our facilities, or exposed to delays if our utility's feeder work gets queued behind hyperscaler projects?

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05Clark

Meta and Be Pro Be Proud Bring Trades Simulators to Jeffersonville

Meta and nonprofit Be Pro Be Proud brought their 10th Anniversary Mobile Workshop Tour to Jeffersonville during One Southern Indiana Manufacturing Week, partnering with One Southern Indiana (1Si) and Maker13, as part of a $500,000 Meta investment spanning 10 stops nationally. The stop ties directly to Meta's $800 million River Ridge data center, which Meta's Kenton Wooden framed as sharing the same electrician and welding trades Southern Indiana manufacturers depend on.

For the huddle: If Meta's trades pipeline is training workers who could leave for Indianapolis or the next data center project within 12-18 months of certification, what can we offer locally to retain those credentialed welders and electricians once construction here slows?

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Questions for Your Morning Huddle

Q: Is my plant inside a TIF district, and does that change how my equipment depreciates? A: Check with your county auditor to confirm whether your parcel sits in a TIF allocation area. If it does, equipment placed in service from 2025 forward stops depreciating at the 30% floor once it ages, while a competitor outside the district can write the same machines down further.

Q: Should I expect Amazon's Greenwood plant to raise my labor costs? A: Not immediately. Amazon's near-$100,000 average wage includes engineers and program managers, not just trades. But expect welder and CNC pay to price above the Indianapolis metro market once equipment-installation announcements show hiring has actually started, so benchmark your pay now.

Q: What should I ask NIPSCO before the next storm, not after? A: Ask where your feeder sits in the restoration priority queue and whether your load qualifies for priority restoration. That answer tells you more about how long you'd be down than the size of the generator sitting outside your office.

These three developments share one thing. The assessor's cost tables, Amazon's pay scale, and NIPSCO's restoration queue are all decisions made somewhere else that land on your budget. You can't set any of them, but you can find out where you stand on each before the next filing, hiring wave, or storm. If a derecho or an ice storm is what finally gets backup power onto your capital list, our guide to C&I backup power strategy walks through diesel, natural gas, and battery architecture before you're choosing between weekend overtime and a six-figure claim.

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