Indiana’s LEAP Project: Costs, Water Fight, and Tenants

The LEAP project in Indiana is a state-backed research and manufacturing district being built on roughly 9,000 acres of former farmland in Boone County near Lebanon, anchored by multibillion-dollar commitments from Eli Lilly and Meta and managed by the Indiana Economic Development Corporation. It has become one of the most contested economic development efforts in the state’s history because of nearly $1 billion in public spending with no disclosed total budget, secretive land acquisitions, and a water supply plan that pulled in communities more than 30 miles away.¹²

What LEAP Is and Who Runs It

LEAP stands for Limitless Exploration/Advanced Pace. It was launched under Governor Eric Holcomb with the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) as the lead agency. The concept was to assemble thousands of acres of “shovel-ready” land near three interstates and the Indianapolis International Airport and market it to advanced manufacturing, life sciences, and technology companies, drawing on university research in Indianapolis and West Lafayette.³

The IEDC’s stated target sectors include life sciences and bio-pharmaceutical manufacturing, microelectronics and semiconductors, ag-tech, clean technology, and data centers. At full build-out, the agency envisions hundreds of companies on the site employing more than 50,000 people across more than 9,000 acres.²

The IEDC itself is a quasi-public agency: technically a private nonprofit corporation performing a government function. That structure sits at the center of the transparency fight. The agency has labeled its projected spending figures “deliberative and speculative” and declined to share them with reporters.¹ Democratic lawmaker Ed DeLaney described the lack of oversight as giving the IEDC a “blank checkbook,” and Citizens Action Coalition consultant Grant Smith said the agency should be “abolished and a transparent department of commerce has to be established.”⁴

What Taxpayers Have Spent

A February 2025 investigation by the Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism and the Indiana Capital Chronicle tallied $985.1 million in total public spending on the district. Of that, $693.9 million came from state-appropriated funds, with $574.1 million already spent and the rest committed to land under contract or earmarked for infrastructure. An additional $388.2 million went to grants and contracts, including $271.5 million to Eli Lilly and $94.4 million to Pure Development, the master developer. Another $15 million covered water-related contracts.¹

The money has moved through the bipartisan State Budget Committee in successive rounds. A $300 million “deal-closing fund” was bolstered in 2022, followed by a $500 million addition in 2023, along with a $150 million revolving land acquisition fund.⁵ In December 2024, the committee approved another $85 million.⁶ The IEDC has never publicly disclosed a full budget for the district.

How the Land Was Assembled

The IEDC bought farmland directly from owners. By October 2024, it had spent about $427 million to acquire roughly 5,800 acres, an average of more than $73,500 per acre. That was more than six times the typical market value of agricultural land in the area when purchases began. The state initially planned to acquire up to 11,000 acres, though that target has since been scaled back somewhat. By May 2025, the IEDC had started listing surplus residential properties it had purchased but no longer needed.⁷⁸

How the buying was done drew as much criticism as what was paid. The IEDC used attorneys as “mystery buyers” without disclosing their client, and sellers were required to sign non-disclosure agreements about the terms of their sales.⁷ Some farmers refused. Wanda Garst, who turned down an offer for her 92-acre farm, told the Indianapolis Business Journal, “Money doesn’t buy everything. God isn’t making more land.” Others alleged neighbors were being “strong armed” into selling.⁹ In June 2024, the IEDC was authorized to repurpose $88 million to acquire land from remaining holdouts.¹⁰

The IEDC does not use eminent domain for economic development, but the water side of the project does. Citizens Energy Group, which is building the pipeline to supply the district, has filed more than 40 eminent domain cases to secure approximately 475 easements. Attorneys for landowners in about three dozen cases challenged the utility’s authority to condemn land, arguing the project exceeded the geographic limits of its eminent domain powers. By June 2026, Citizens said it had reached full or partial agreements with all but four of those landowners, though compensation in many cases remained to be determined.¹¹

Who Has Committed to Move In

Eli Lilly was the first company to commit and remains the anchor tenant. The pharmaceutical company bought 605 acres in April 2023 for $60 million and has since escalated its total investment to more than $13 billion across multiple facilities.⁸ The commitments came in stages: $2.1 billion in May 2022 for two manufacturing sites, $1.6 billion more in April 2023, and $5.3 billion in May 2024 for active pharmaceutical ingredient production, primarily for Zepbound and Mounjaro.¹² In May 2025, Lilly broke ground on the $4.5 billion Lilly Medicine Foundry, a combined research and manufacturing site expected to open in late 2027 and create 400 full-time jobs. Indiana committed to road, water, and electricity improvements along with incentives tied to Lilly meeting investment and hiring goals.¹³

Meta broke ground on a data center campus in February 2026, investing more than $10 billion. The campus is designed to deliver one gigawatt of capacity for artificial intelligence workloads. Meta committed over $120 million toward water, road, and utility infrastructure in Lebanon, pledged $1 million per year for 20 years to the Boone REMC Community Fund, and set a goal to be “water positive” by 2030, partnering with the ag-tech firm Arable to restore 200 million gallons of water annually in the Upper Wabash River Basin over the next decade.¹⁴ The campus is expected to support more than 4,000 construction jobs at peak and about 300 permanent operational positions.¹⁵

As of mid-2025 reporting, no other companies beyond Lilly and Meta had publicly committed to the site.⁸

The Water Fight

Water has been the single most contentious element of the project. Early IEDC estimates put full build-out demand at up to 100 million gallons per day, and Lebanon and Boone County do not have the local supply to meet that.¹⁶

The Wabash Pipeline That Wasn’t Built

The IEDC first proposed a 35-mile pipeline to move up to 100 million gallons per day from the Wabash Alluvial Aquifer near Lafayette to the LEAP site. A Phase 1 study by INTERA found that two collector wells on the south bank of the Wabash could “sustainably produce” upwards of 30 million gallons per day.¹⁷ Black & Veatch Corp. held a $10.2 million contract to plan it.¹⁸

The Lafayette area pushed back hard. The Lafayette City Council voted unanimously in November 2023 to “vehemently” oppose the plan. Mayor Tony Roswarski called it “the biggest thing that I’ve ever dealt with in my 20 years” and said community meetings drew 500 to 700 people.¹⁹ The West Lafayette City Council passed its own condemnation in October 2023, and Tippecanoe County commissioners considered a nine-month moratorium on high-volume water exports and sent a letter of opposition to the governor.²⁰

In November 2023, Governor Holcomb moved oversight of the water study from the IEDC to the Indiana Finance Authority (IFA). IEDC Secretary David Rosenberg said the IFA was the “right agency to continue the study.”²¹ The IFA’s North Central Indiana Regional Water Study, published in January 2025 by Stantec Consulting Services, covered 15 counties and 50 years and concluded the region is “not yet coming up against the ‘hard boundary’ of simply not enough available, affordable, reliable water supply to meet projected demand,” while flagging increased stress in fall months and cumulative excess water availability projected to decrease by 15 to 30 percent in some subbasins.²² The study did not explicitly endorse the LEAP district.²³

The Pipeline Being Built Instead

The state pivoted. Citizens Energy Group, an Indianapolis-based utility, is now building the Citizens-Lebanon Water Supply Program, a $560 million project to deliver up to 25 million gallons per day to Lebanon Utilities by 2031. It involves 52 to 53 miles of new water mains across Boone, Hamilton, Hendricks, and Marion counties and draws from 10 sources including Eagle Creek, Geist, and Morse reservoirs, the White River, Fall Creek, and groundwater. The program is financed through the Indiana Drinking Water State Revolving Fund with bonds capped at $700 million; Citizens says costs will be recovered through wholesale service revenues from Lebanon Utilities, paid by LEAP tenants, and that current customers will not see rate increases. Construction began in early 2026, with supply milestones of 2 million gallons per day by 2027, 10 million by 2028, and 25 million by 2031.²⁴

Wastewater and Eagle Creek

Where the district’s wastewater will go has become its own dispute. Lebanon Utilities plans to discharge 15 to 20 million gallons of treated wastewater per day into Eagle Creek Reservoir, a drinking water source for parts of Indianapolis. The plan requires companies inside LEAP to test and pre-treat wastewater on-site before it reaches Lebanon’s upgraded plant.²⁵

Retired environmental attorney Larry Kane argued the project is being “bifurcated” into smaller pieces to avoid broader environmental review. Retired hydrologist Martin Risch said discharging into a contained reservoir rather than a flowing stream is unusual for Indiana and risks accumulation of unmonitored contaminants.²⁵ In August 2025, the IFA issued a preliminary “Finding of No Significant Impact,” concluding the project did not require a full environmental impact statement.²⁶ After public pushback, Lebanon Utilities announced in May 2026 that the discharge would not be located within Eagle Creek Park, though the final outfall site remained under evaluation.²⁷

The Hoosier Environmental Council has flagged that the 9,000-acre development sits on the headwaters of Sugar Creek, including Deer Creek, Wolf Creek, and Prairie Creek, warning of degraded water quality, increased flooding and erosion downstream, and loss of wildlife habitat.²⁸

What the Legislature and Governor Have Changed

Senate Bill 516, from the 2025 session, requires the IEDC to notify local officials at least 30 days before closing on land acquisitions exceeding 100 acres and mandates annual reports on revenue, expenses, debt, and tax increment financing details for innovation development districts. It passed the Senate 49-0 and the House 87-4, and Governor Mike Braun signed it on May 1, 2025, as Public Law 145.²⁹³⁰

In April 2025, Braun signed three executive orders aimed at the IEDC. One required nine state-affiliated nonprofits, including the Indiana Economic Development Foundation, to file a decade’s worth of tax documents and financial reports by year’s end; the Foundation had not filed annual reports with the State Budget Committee since 2019. Another established new economic development metrics focused on jobs created and average wages. A third directed the creation of standardized economic development maps to reduce “confusion, duplication, and inefficiency.”³¹

Senate Bill 4, authored by Sen. Eric Koch (R-Bedford), established a permit process under the Indiana Department of Natural Resources for basin-to-basin water transfers and requires utilities to obtain a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission before building “long-haul water pipelines.” Braun signed it on April 22, 2025, with permit requirements taking effect July 1, 2025. The law exempts existing water transfers, including the water Citizens Energy Group is already lined up to provide to LEAP. Indiana Conservation Voters criticized that carve-out.³²³³

Local government has also moved. On June 15, 2026, the Boone County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a one-year moratorium on new data center applications in unincorporated areas, citing the county’s outdated 1998 zoning ordinance and 2009 comprehensive plan. The moratorium does not affect Meta’s $10 billion campus, which sits on land annexed by the city of Lebanon and falls outside county jurisdiction. Boone County became the twelfth Indiana county to enact such a moratorium.³⁴³⁵

Where the Project Stands

As of mid-2026, LEAP is under active construction on several fronts: Lilly’s medicine foundry, Meta’s data center campus, the Citizens Energy water pipeline, and planning for the wastewater treatment upgrade. Residents and local business owners continue to press for more transparency about the project’s full cost and future plans. Water supply limits have reportedly prevented some planned projects from moving forward, and tension persists between Lebanon-area boosters and communities in the Lafayette region and Indianapolis worried about their water.³⁶ The Citizens Action Coalition continues to call for the project to be put on hold or limited to the Lilly facility, with the company bearing its own infrastructure costs.¹⁶

1
Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism. LEAP Spending Nears $1B, Investigation Finds
2
IEDC. LEAP Lebanon Innovation District
3
Indiana Capital Chronicle. LEAP Spending Nears $1B With Projected Budget Unknown
4
WFYI. Citizens Action Coalition Releases Report Criticizing IEDC’s Handling of Proposed Water Project
5
Indianapolis Business Journal. State’s Big, Bold LEAP District Play Draws Some Reflection
6
WFYI. Lawmakers Approve More Money for LEAP District
7
Indianapolis Business Journal. IEDC Paying Premium for Farmland for Boone County Tech District
8
Indiana Capital Chronicle. For Sale: IEDC Homes Purchased for LEAP, Never Used
9
Indiana Capital Chronicle. IEDC Spends $126M in Boone County Land Purchases
10
Indiana Capital Chronicle. LEAP District Coverage
11
The Indiana Lawyer. Citizens Energy Reaches Agreements on Multiple Eminent Domain Cases for LEAP-Related Project
12
Eli Lilly Investor Relations. Lilly Increases Manufacturing Investment to $9 Billion
13
Eli Lilly Investor Relations. Lilly Announces New $4.5 Billion Site – Lilly Medicine Foundry
14
Meta. Meta’s New Data Center in Lebanon, Indiana
15
City of Lebanon. Meta Makes Lebanon Data Center Announcement Official
16
Citizens Action Coalition. LEAP
17
Indiana Capital Chronicle. Abundant Water in Wabash Aquifer for LEAP District, Say Early IEDC Findings
18
IEDC. Testing Shows Abundant Water Supply to Support LEAP District
19
Purdue Exponent. Lafayette City Council Unanimously Opposes LEAP Project
20
Journal and Courier. Commissioners Consider Passing Ordinance Limiting Impact of LEAP
21
WBAA. Gov. Holcomb Moves LEAP Water Study Away From IEDC Oversight
22
Indiana Finance Authority. North Central Indiana Regional Water Study
23
Indiana Capital Chronicle. New Water Studies Document Ample Water Supply but Advise Protective Measures
24
Citizens Energy Group. Citizens-Lebanon Water Supply Program
25
IndyStar. LEAP Wastewater Will Discharge Directly Into Eagle Creek Reservoir
26
Indiana Finance Authority. Lebanon Wastewater Treatment Plant Improvements Environmental Assessment
27
WFYI. Eagle Creek Park Won’t Be Site of LEAP Water Discharge
28
Hoosier Environmental Council. Headwaters Are the Beginnings of Rivers, and Lebanon’s LEAP Sits Right on Top
29
Fast Democracy. SB 516 Bill Tracker
30
Indiana Senate Republicans. Governor Ceremonially Signs IEDC Transparency Bill
31
WFYI. Braun Signs Series of Executive Orders Taking Aim at IEDC
32
Indiana Senate Republicans. Koch Legislation to Protect Indiana’s Water Signed by Governor
33
WFYI. Bill Aims to Ensure Long Water Pipelines Don’t Threaten Supply, Exempts Part of LEAP Project
34
Boone County. Boone County Data Center Moratorium
35
IndyStar. Boone County Imposes 1-Year Data Center Moratorium
36
Star City TV. Lebanon Says It Deserves Transparency When It Comes to LEAP Project Updates