Rural Westfield? Not for long

Country fried steak and mashed potatoes are the luncheon special at the Roadside Cafe in tiny Eagletown, where the hot topic is the wave of development sweeping the area.

At least 4,000 new homes and enough retail space to rival Castleton Square and Clay Terrace malls combined could start going up within the next year or two in this rural corner of Hamilton County. Over the next 10 to 20 years, the area -- some of which was recently annexed into Westfield -- is poised to be one of the hot growth spots in Indiana's fastest-growing county.

Ackerson Farm is the most ambitious of the projects announced. Proposed by the family that has owned the namesake farm for 100 years, it would be a 1900s-themed, master-planned community with a mix of 1,125 houses, townhouses, condos and apartments and up to 1.5 million square feet of retailing, restaurants, office and business buildings.

Real estate insiders say other developers are acquiring more land across Ind. 32 from Ackerson Farm for another 2,000 homes and shopping.

"It's quite a happening little place," said Westfield Town Council President Paul J. Smith. "Along with Bridgewater (nearly 1,000 home sites) and the other new home developments, it's really putting Westfield on the map."

But not everyone is happy about the wave of development coming.

Ackerson Farm will be across the highway from the homey Roadside Cafe, where owner Maggie Achenbach says, "We've got enough development in Hamilton County. What are we going to do when we don't have any more trees? I used to live in the city and tried moving north to get away."

In other moments, though, she seems reconciled to the overwhelming changes on the horizon. "You can't stop progress," she said, "but it could bum me out."

"We're really excited that Ackerson Farm is setting the bar for development very high," said Kevin C. Buchheit, community development director for Westfield.

"It is a neo-traditional step back in time that looks at the mixed uses that would have been in a community, sometimes homes and businesses in the same buildings. There is a more human, rather than automobile, scale to these plans."

He ticked off a list of several other proposed subdivisions that are adding hundreds, maybe thousands, of new homes to the western side of town.

Construction, for example, starts this summer on a subdivision of $1 million-plus homes in the 330-acre Viking Meadows, the picturesque horse farm of Howard Peterson, father of Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson.

The Ackerson shopping centers and business buildings would be along more than a mile of frontage on Ind. 32 and Eagletown Road.

Designers said Ackerson Farm attempts to capture the flavor of Eagletown, had it survived the Great Depression.

A Westfield committee has been studying a long-term plan to save, reproduce or enhance the small villages of Eagletown, Jolietville, Lamong and Hortonville.

Buchheit said the vision is to make them revitalized "nodes" of village-style community life, linked by miles of the new Monon and Midland trails for hiking, biking and horse riding.

"Imagine the lifestyle. You could wake up on a Saturday morning in your second-floor townhome above a cafe along a main street. Go downstairs for breakfast and then bike on a trail to a boarding stable to get your horse for a ride. At the end of a busy day, you've never needed your car," Buchheit said.

Adjacent to Ackerson is Westgate, a 700-home development proposed by Drees Homes. Land manager John Talbot said the 258-acre Westgate will be an eclectic mix of homes, "kind of like Broad Ripple and the Meridian-Kessler neighborhood" that also had their roots in the 1900s.

And Davis Homes is proposing another subdivision on 80 acres adjacent to Ackerson.

"Take all three together -- Ackerson, Drees and Davis -- and we've got a square mile under development adjacent to Eagletown between Ditch and Towne roads, north of 166th Street," Buchheit said.

The rapid growth in Hamilton County is hardly news. Eight of the 15 largest subdivisions proposed or in progress in the Indianapolis metro area are in Hamilton County. The development boom poised to happen on the western edge of Westfield, however, is farther north and west than previous projects.

Residents are hoping the new development will blend the best of the old with the new.

Paul Albrecht, pastor of The Journey Church on Eagletown Road near Westfield, said the American Baptist congregation bought a 125-year-old Quaker building and remodeled it exactly because the location is in the path of home development.

"It would be nice for Eagletown to keep its charm, kind of the same way that we didn't change the white frame country church, but we modernized it," he said.

Westfield town planners have worried about the same things.

A committee has been writing a comprehensive plan for Westfield that would respect the historic crossroads communities.

Eagletown is in a key location. There are plans to widen Ind. 32 to four lanes to form a westside gateway into Westfield through Eagletown.

The Midland Trail, an east-west walking and biking path to be developed in the area, would pass through Ackerson Farm, linking to the Monon Trail, which would let people go on to the center of Indianapolis.

Planners also want a nature preserve along Eagle Creek.

Nels Ackerson and his sister Karen Ackerson Jamesen understand the little Eagletown village that once thrived in the area because they grew up on the family farm that is now the center of development.

"Our grandparents were immigrants from Sweden. Our grandfather worked as a hired hand. They saved their money until they could buy the farm in 1905. I can hardly imagine the tremendous pride they had to know they were a part of the American dream," Nels Ackerson said.

In the early 20th century, Eagletown had churches, a school, a post office, a blacksmith's shop and a brick factory. The architecture of the homes reflected the tastes and backgrounds of the European immigrants.

Then the Great Depression descended, and Eagletown withered.

Nels Ackerson, 61, is now a lawyer based in Washington, D.C. And Jamesen, 66, retired recently as a professor at Purdue University. They've leased their Eagletown fields to a local farmer.

"It's just not financially viable to have small, 200-acre farms anymore, so we decided the time has come to consider other options," he said.

Family members plan to develop the property themselves during the next 10 to 20 years. The Ackersons have hired Broad Ripple-based Weaver Design Group to help draw up a modern version of the old Indiana village.

Weaver drew the designs for the Village of WestClay, another early 1900s-styled development with very upscale homes that has been growing for five years in Carmel.

"We also looked at many other traditional neighborhood developments" popular in other parts of the country, Ackerson said.

But the development will be much different from the Eagletown of old. The plan for the 236 acres of Ackerson Farm includes more than a mile of commercial development along the east-west Ind. 32 and the north-south Eagletown Road.

"I don't see it as a place for Super Wal-Mart, but there could be large department stores," Nels Ackerson said.

The homes, though, would be a mixture of multistory townhouses, apartments and various house styles, like a city of 100 years ago.

Most of the lots would be narrow -- as they used to be in small cities and towns -- ranging from 45 to 60 feet wide.

Lots near the edges of the development would be larger so they blend with the neighboring estate homes and horse farms.

A large park would be at the heart of the development. About 23 percent of the residential area is open space. There also would be a neighborhood center with a few small businesses, such as an ice cream shop and a dry cleaner, to cater to residents.

And in the Village Center district, the Midland Trail would cross through a business plaza of green space surrounded by two-and three-story live-work buildings with shops on the ground floor and apartments or offices on upper floors. A large, columned civic building or church would dominate the center.

"Part of the reminiscing about growing up is to say that we want to save our heritage. We should renew the sense of neighborhood, when the community had common meeting places and people shared common interests," Ackerson said.

"But, of course, that has to be adapted with today's wireless technology."

ACKERSON FARM

The 236-acre family farm, begun in 1905, is at Eagletown Road and Ind. 32 on the west side of Westfield. Here's a quick look at plans:

--Size: Nels Ackerson and his sister Karen Ackerson Jamesen filed plans with the town for development of 1,125 houses and townhouses and up to 1.5 million square feet of restaurants, retailing and other businesses.

--Themes: Re-create tiny turn-of-the-century Eagletown as if it had flourished, with parks, hiking and biking trails, and an old-style town center. Two-story buildings in the center would have shops on the ground floor and apartments upstairs.

--Architecture: Borrowed from old Indiana towns and European villages where area immigrants came from.

ABOUT WESTFIELD

--History: Founded in 1834 by Quakers. Several homes were part of the Underground Railroad, a mid-1800s network that helped hide runaway slaves as they made their way to freedom.

--Population: 9,293.

--Racial breakdown: White: 93.6 percent; Black: 1 percent; Hispanic: 3.8 percent.

--Median age: 30.2.

--College degree: 35.6 percent.

--Median household income (1999): $52,963.

--Median home value: $133,100.

Sources: http://westfieldtown.org/; 2000 census

Compiled by The Star's Library

BIG DEVELOPMENTS, PROPOSED OR IN PROGRESS

Here's a list of the largest subdivisions under construction or planning and zoning review in the metro area. Information is from local governments and from MarketGraphics, a consultant to the Builders Association of Greater Indianapolis:

1. Anson, up to 2,400 units plus commercial and industrial sites, I-65 and Ind. 334 west of Zionsville. Status: Preliminary construction begins this year.

2. Summer Lake, Rafert Farms and Hamptons, total of 2,280 units in three adjacent developments, near Exit 13 of I-69, Madison County. Status: Summer Lake homes are under construction; the others are completing planning review.

3. Heartland Crossing, about 2,150 lots, Ind. 67 north of Mooresville. Status: Since construction began in 1998, about 1,900 homes have been built.

4. Gramercy, estimated 2,000 units, 126th Street and Keystone Avenue, Carmel. Status: Under review by the Carmel Plan Commission.

5. Southern Dunes, 1,926 lots, Ind. 37, south side of Indianapolis. Status: Golf course open, homes partially built.

6. Winding Ridge, 1,888 lots, near 56th Street and Pendleton Pike, Lawrence Township. Status: More than half the houses are built.

7. Maple Knoll, 1,825 lots, 161st Street, Westfield. Status: Construction of commercial buildings continues this year. About 1,000 lots are platted, and 300 homes have been built.

8. Britton Falls and Del Webb community, 1,822 lots, 136th Street and Cyntheanne Road, Fishers. Status: Model homes to open later this year.

9. Noble West, 1,498 lots, 146th Street and Hazel Dell Parkway, Noblesville. Status: Home and commercial construction are under way.

10. Countryside, 1,330 lots, 161st Street and Oak Ridge, Westfield. Status: About 1,000 homes built.

11. Saxony, up to 1,325 units, 131st Street and Olio Road, Fishers. Status: Fewer than one-third built.

12. Avalon, up to 1,250 lots, northeast corner of 126th Street and Olio Road, Fishers. Status: About 25 percent built.

13. The Settlement, 1,165 lots, Smith Road north of U.S. 40, Plainfield. Status: New model homes are open.

14. Walker Farms, 1,136 lots, Ind. 334 at I-65, Whitestown. Status: About half constructed.

15. Ackerson Farm, proposed 1,125 units, Ind. 32, west side of Westfield. Status: Town Council hearing Monday.