Ed Carpenter Racing announced Tuesday that it plans to relocate its headquarters from the northwest side of Indianapolis to Westfield’s Grand Park Sports Campus, where it is expected to be the first piece of a district planned at the sports complex.
The NTT IndyCar Series team’s campus is expected to include a 76,000-square-foot engineering facility, along with office and retail space, south of the Grand Park Event Center and on the west side of Grand Park Boulevard. The facility will feature a public viewing area into the team’s operations, a merchandise store and a Java House coffee shop. The project will also include the construction of the first city-funded parking garage at Grand Park.
Construction on the new headquarters is expected to begin early next year and be completed in early 2027.
“We are very excited about this project and how it will impact the growth of ECR into the future,” driver and team co-owner Ed Carpenter said in written remarks. “The opportunity to build a world-class facility within Grand Park was something we could not pass up.”
ECR was founded in 2011, and it is co-owned by Carpenter, Heartland Food Products Group CEO Ted Gelov, former Indianapolis Motor Speedway CEO Tony George and Magnolia Health Systems founder Stuart Reed.
ECR competes in the IndyCar Series with full-time drivers Alexander Rossi and Christian Rasmussen, while Carpenter races in the Indianapolis 500.
Grand Park, which opened in 2014, has 31 soccer fields, 26 baseball diamonds, two administration buildings, seven concession stands and the 378,000-square-foot multi-use Grand Park Events Center. The Indianapolis Colts moved their annual summer training camp to the park in 2018.
ECR’s headquarters is the first major project announced as part of the Grand Park District Master Plan, which the city unveiled early this year. The district could feature a 10,000-seat stadium, a sports technology incubator space and a park lined with attractions, housing, office facilities, restaurants and hotels.
“ECR’s decision to relocate and expand at Grand Park is a major milestone for our city and a testament to the strength of our vision for Grand Park’s future,” Mayor Scott Willis said in a written statement. “This project brings new opportunities for our residents, visitors, and local economy.”
In December, members of the Westfield City Council unanimously approved a 30-year, $184 million public-private partnership with Grand Park Sports & Entertainment to operate the 400-acre sports campus. GPSE is a joint venture between Indianapolis-based Indy Sports and Entertainment LLC (the Indy Eleven professional soccer club) and Westfield-based Bullpen Ventures LLC.
Indianapolis-based commercial development company Keystone Group LLC is a private developer working with the city on Grand Park District. Keystone and Indy Eleven are both owned by Ersal Ozdemir. Bullpen Ventures operates Bullpen Tournaments, which organizes baseball and softball tournaments at Grand Park.
Grand Park District is expected cover an area of about 152 acres north and south of 186th Street and bisected by Grand Park Boulevard. The district, which could take a decade to develop, would have three key destination areas: the existing Grand Park Events Center at the north, the proposed stadium in the middle and either an ice rink facility or a sports-related headquarters building at the south.
In total, Grand Park District would have about 8 million square feet of development and 4,000 residential units. There would be more than 7,000 parking spaces across multiple parking garages, two surface parking lots and on-street parking.