River Ridge leader calls Cheesecake Factory project a ‘breakthrough’
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The executive director of the River Ridge Development Authority says the announcement that The Cheesecake Factory Inc. will build a bakery at the River Ridge Commerce Center in Charlestown is a “precursor of bigger and better things to come.”
The restaurant chain said Wednesday it will invest $74 million to build the bakery and create more than 200 jobs by 2025.
Jerry Acy said while there is still a lot of work to do at the site, the project is representative of the efforts made to grow the Charlestown portion of the business park.
In an interview with Inside INdiana Business, Acy said having a global company like The Cheesecake Factory come to River Ridge is a breakthrough for the park’s brand recognition.
“The fact that if you locate a world-known facility like this that will be producing a product that’s actually sold worldwide in numerous outlets, it would send a really good message,” Acy said. “Concerning the logistics and the fact that a company is coming in, you’ve got to have the proper resources available.”
The RRDA has recently been focusing heavily on the Charlestown portion of the River Ridge Commerce Center, which encompasses about 6,000 acres of the former Indiana Army Ammunition Plant, which was shuttered in 1998 and covers property in both Charlestown and Jeffersonville.
The site on which The Cheesecake Factory facility will sit was one of the last parcels transferred to the RRDA after remediation work was completed by the federal government. The RRDA then worked to demolish the former Army buildings, clear the site, and build out access roads, the water system and wastewater system.
“We have constructed the initial access roads into that site, and another access road will be constructed behind the Cheesecake Factory site,” Acy said. “And we have a tremendous amount of work yet to do on the wastewater collection system.”
Last week, the city of Charlestown broke ground on a new wastewater treatment plant, which will provide services for River Ridge tenants.
The Cheesecake Factory will use the facility to make and distribute cheesecake and other desserts to its restaurants, licensees and third-party customers. The company did not provide a timeline for construction to begin, but Acy said he hopes it will be within a year.
The facility, Acy believes, will help spur more direct interest from companies wanting to build at River Ridge rather than just looking for speculative buildings.
“This year we’ll have more prospect activity than in any previous year, relative to basically end-user projects that will be companies that were looking, just like Cheesecake Factory, that produce, manufacturing or those type of operations,” he said. “We still have about 1,600 acres in the Charlestown area to fully develop. So we still have a lot of work to do in front of us, and we feel like the opportunities will continue to come.”