The LEAP Lebanon Innovation District is an Indiana Economic Development Corporation project on the north side of Lebanon in Boone County, which the IEDC markets as “9,000+ acres ready to parcel for manufacturing or R&D facilities or corporate campuses.” Eli Lilly and Meta have each published multi-billion-dollar capital commitments to sites in Lebanon, and the road, water and sewer work serving the corridor is documented in state agency and utility records. What nobody can honestly tell you, including us, is what any of that does to the value of one specific house in Zionsville, Whitestown or Lebanon, because no public dataset measures that.

That gap between what is documented and what is knowable is why this page exists. Almost everything written about LEAP online blurs three very different categories together: money that has been spent on things that now physically exist, numbers that are forecasts published by the agency promoting the district, and ideas that are currently nothing more than a request for proposals. We separate them here, name the source and the date for every figure, and then say plainly what a homeowner or a buyer can reasonably conclude. Where a number is not published by a primary source, we say that instead of estimating one.

What is the LEAP Lebanon Innovation District?

The district’s name matters more than it looks. The IEDC calls it the LEAP Lebanon Innovation District on its own project page, and the same page refers to “LEAP Districts” in the plural, which tells you LEAP is a state program that can carry more than one site. The word “Lebanon” is what pins this one to Boone County. If you see it written as simply “the LEAP Innovation District,” that phrasing is geographically ambiguous about the exact thing a Boone County buyer is asking about.

The City of Lebanon’s own LEAP page states verbatim that “The Limitless Exploration Advanced Pace (LEAP) project was launched by the IEDC.” That expansion of the acronym comes from the city, not from the IEDC, and the city attaches it to the “project” rather than offering it as the district’s formal name. We note the distinction because it is the kind of small inaccuracy that gets copied from site to site until it looks official.

On size, the IEDC publishes “9,000+ available acres strategically situated on Indiana’s I-65 Hard Tech Corridor,” and the Indiana Department of Transportation independently describes “the planned 9,000 acre LEAP Innovation and Research District” on its S.R. 32 project page. Two separate state agencies using the same figure is about as good as this kind of number gets. It is worth understanding what the figure is and is not: it describes district planning and available acreage. It is not a statement that the IEDC purchased, assembled or owns 9,000 acres, and we have not seen a primary source that says so.

For position, the IEDC describes the site as “located at the midpoint of a 70-mile technology corridor that connects Indianapolis to … Purdue University,” with an “experienced workforce of 1 million+ within a radius of 60 minutes.” Those are the IEDC’s own marketing statements about the site, quoted as such.

Source: Indiana Economic Development Corporation, LEAP Lebanon project page, iedc.in.gov, retrieved August 16, 2026 and re-checked August 17, 2026. The page carries no publication or last-updated date. City of Lebanon LEAP page, lebanon.in.gov, retrieved August 16, 2026 and re-checked August 17, 2026, likewise undated. INDOT, “SR 32 New Alignment in Boone County,” in.gov, retrieved August 16, 2026, undated.

What is actually committed and under construction?

This is the part of the story that does not depend on anyone’s forecast. Two companies have published their own capital commitments in their own newsrooms, and the buildings exist or are being built.

Eli Lilly and Company announced on May 6, 2026 an additional $4.5 billion investment across two of its three Lebanon sites, which the company said brought its total Indiana capital expansion commitments since 2020 to more than $21 billion. The same release announced the opening, that day, of Lilly Lebanon Advanced Therapies, described by the company as its first dedicated genetic medicine manufacturing facility and as the first of three planned sites on the Lebanon campus, alongside Lilly Lebanon API and the Lilly Medicine Foundry. Lilly chair and chief executive David A. Ricks stated in that release: “When our Lebanon API site opens in 2027, it will be the largest API production site in U.S. history, a commitment we chose to build here, at home.” The release also states that Lilly’s United States capital expansion commitments since 2020 total more than $50 billion.

Meta’s February 2026 announcement of its Lebanon data center describes an investment of more than $10 billion in data center infrastructure and the surrounding community, a campus of roughly 4 million square feet, and 1GW of capacity once operational. Meta says the project will support more than 4,000 construction jobs at peak and approximately 300 operational jobs, and that it is Meta’s second data center in Indiana, its 27th in its United States fleet and its 31st in the world.

Which of these is actually inside the district?

This is worth separating, because the two sitings do not rest on the same evidence. For Lilly, the December 2022 INDOT and FHWA public notice reproduced by the City of Lebanon states that the district “includes the Eli Lilly and Company campus,” and the City of Lebanon published the May 6, 2025 Medicine Foundry groundbreaking as having taken place within the LEAP district. That is two government sources placing Lilly inside it.

Meta is a different case, and we describe it the way the record actually reads. The City of Lebanon presents the Meta campus as part of LEAP on its own LEAP page, which carries a “More About Meta” section and states that “State Road 32 runs between the Meta and Foundry sites.” Meta’s own two publications locate the campus in “Lebanon, Indiana” and never use the word LEAP at all. We have not obtained an adopted boundary document placing the campus inside the district, so we report the city’s presentation of it as the city’s, rather than asserting the siting ourselves. On a page that asks you to demand an adopted document from anyone drawing a hard LEAP line, we are not going to draw one.

Sources: Eli Lilly and Company news release, May 6, 2026, full text hosted by the City of Lebanon at lebanon.in.gov, PDF read directly August 17, 2026. Meta, “Hello, Lebanon” at datacenters.atmeta.com and “Meta’s New Data Center in Lebanon, Indiana” at about.fb.com, both February 11, 2026, retrieved August 17, 2026. INDOT and FHWA public notice of December 12, 2022, reproduced at lebanon.in.gov. City of Lebanon, “Ground broken on Lilly Foundry within LEAP district,” May 6, 2025. Late 2027 first-buildings timing per the City of Lebanon LEAP page, retrieved August 16, 2026 and re-checked August 17, 2026.

Two things about that table deserve emphasis. First, a specific acreage figure for the Meta campus circulates widely in trade and local coverage. It appears in nothing Meta published, and Meta publishes square footage rather than acres, so we do not carry an acreage number for the campus at all. Second, Meta’s own two publications name different recipient funds for its energy-assistance commitment of $1 million each year for 20 years, so we describe the commitment without naming the fund.

Meta also published community and utility commitments that a Boone County homeowner has a direct interest in: more than $120 million toward critical water infrastructure in Lebanon and other public infrastructure improvements including roads, transmission lines and utility upgrades; a statement that it pays the full cost of the energy its data centers use; a closed-loop, liquid-cooled design; and a commitment to restore 100% of the water it consumes in Lebanon to local watersheds, plus an irrigation partnership Meta says will restore 200 million gallons of water a year for ten years in the Upper Wabash River Basin. Those are the company’s own published commitments. We report them as commitments, not as outcomes, because none of them can be verified as delivered yet.

Which numbers are projections rather than commitments?

The single most repeated number about LEAP is a projection. The IEDC states on its project page that “At full build, LEAP Lebanon will be home to hundreds of companies, employing over 50,000 employees,” and the City of Lebanon repeats it with a counter reading “Jobs Forecasted 50,000+.” That figure is a forecast by the agency whose job is to market the district, at an undefined future date called full build. It is not jobs created, not jobs coming and not jobs committed, and anyone presenting it as any of those three is misreading the source.

We are not saying the number is wrong. We are saying it belongs in a different column from Lilly’s opened building and Meta’s poured foundations, and that a homeowner making a decision should weight it accordingly.

The mixed-use village is a third category again. The City of Lebanon’s LEAP page states that proposals are being sought for LEAP’s mixed-use village. A request for proposals is a solicitation. At the time of writing there is no published acreage, budget, program or selected developer that we could obtain from a primary source, and the IEDC’s own newsroom did not yield the RFP document. If a residential component of LEAP matters to your decision, that is the file to watch, and today it is close to empty.

Source: Indiana Economic Development Corporation, LEAP Lebanon project page, iedc.in.gov, retrieved August 16, 2026 and re-checked August 17, 2026. The page carries no publication or last-updated date, so the retrieval date is the only period available. City of Lebanon LEAP page, lebanon.in.gov, retrieved August 16, 2026 and re-checked August 17, 2026, likewise undated. The 50,000 figure is stated by both as a projection at full build, with no date attached to full build.

What infrastructure is funded, and who repays it?

Infrastructure is the most honest leading indicator available, because roads and water mains have contracts, letting dates and repayment sources attached to them. Here the record is unusually clear, with one exception that we are going to flag rather than paper over.

Sources: INDOT project site 52at65.com, home, About and FAQ pages, retrieved August 17, 2026. INDOT, “SR 32 New Alignment in Boone County,” in.gov, retrieved August 16, 2026. Citizens Energy Group, Citizens-Lebanon Water Supply Program, retrieved August 16, 2026. Lebanon Utilities, Wholesale Water Supply Program, retrieved August 16, 2026. No construction cost is published for the 52@65 interchange by INDOT, so none is stated here. Anyone who needs a firm interchange opening date should ask INDOT’s Crawfordsville District directly.

On who pays, both utilities have published statements that a homeowner should read directly rather than take secondhand. Citizens Energy Group states that its customers will not pay the program costs. Lebanon Utilities states that current LU customer rates will not increase due to the project, and that “loan repayment will come from sewer rates within the LEAP Innovation District, not existing customers.” Citizens has also published a myths-and-facts response to the most common claim about the water program, quoted by the City of Lebanon: “Citizens has agreed to provide up to 25 million gallons per day to Lebanon Utilities as a wholesale customer, not directly to the LEAP District. That water will come from the entire Citizens water system, not from Eagle Creek alone.”

Water in this corridor is genuinely contested, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. On April 13, 2026 the City of Lebanon issued a formal response to the Indianapolis-Marion County City-County Council about the water supply program and proposed wastewater infrastructure, in which the city stated that “critical aspects of the project, including final discharge locations, remain under active, data-driven evaluation.” We have read the city’s side of that exchange. We have not obtained the Council’s own letter or resolution, so we are not characterizing the dispute beyond that.

What has Boone County housing actually done?

Here is where the honest answer disappoints people. Boone County’s housing market can be measured. What cannot be measured is how much of the movement is LEAP, because there is no counterfactual Boone County running without a LEAP district next to it.

Source: MIBOR REALTOR Association, Market Insights Report, July 2026, Boone County page (p.14), data provided by the MIBOR Broker Listing Cooperative and updated 08/04/26; page read directly August 17, 2026. Single Family Residence only. Percentage changes are as published by MIBOR and are computed from unrounded values, so they will not always reconcile against the rounded figures shown. MIBOR publishes at county and 17-county region level only, so there is no MIBOR figure for Zionsville, Whitestown or Lebanon individually.

Read that table carefully, because the shape of it is the point. Volume is up strongly and price is down. That is not what a simple story about a boom looks like. A falling median alongside rising sales usually means the mix of what sold changed, not that every house lost value, and the county’s building permit record shows exactly the kind of mix shift that would produce it.

In calendar year 2025, Whitestown authorized 596 single-family permits at an average declared construction valuation of about $296,000, Zionsville authorized 234 at about $1,043,000, and Lebanon authorized 49 at about $292,000. When the county’s permit volume concentrates in its lowest-valuation municipality, the county median can fall while nothing at all happens to the value of an established Zionsville house. That is a composition effect, and it is the single most common way people misread a county median.

Source: US Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey, place-level file for the Midwest Region, calendar year 2025. Averages computed from the survey’s 1-unit value divided by 1-unit units. Building Permits Survey value is declared construction valuation at time of permit and excludes land. It is not a sale price, a list price or a price per square foot.

Population moved in the same direction. Between the Census Bureau’s April 1, 2020 estimates base and its July 1, 2025 estimate, Whitestown went from 10,276 to 15,767, Zionsville from 30,553 to 33,624, and Lebanon from 16,762 to 17,913. Growth is real and it is not evenly distributed across the county.

Source: US Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 Subcounty Population Estimates. The 2020 figure is the estimates base, which is a modified base and is not identical to the published 2020 Census count.

Does LEAP show up in your property tax bill?

Not in any way you can read off a rate, and 2026 is the year that proves it. Certified gross tax rates in Boone County moved in both directions at once between taxes payable 2025 and taxes payable 2026.

Source: Indiana Department of Local Government Finance, Certified Tax Rates by Taxing District, 2025 and 2026 files, in.gov. Rates are per $100 of net assessed value for taxes payable in the year shown. Only the payable-2026 rates are certified; later years are not.

Anyone who tells you LEAP pushed your taxes up or down is reading a signal that is not there. The same year those rates were certified, the state changed the underlying arithmetic. Senate Enrolled Act 1-2025, signed April 15, 2025 as Public Law 68-2025, phases the homestead standard deduction down from $48,000 at the 2025 assessment date to $40,000 in 2026, $30,000 in 2027, $20,000 in 2028, $10,000 in 2029 and zero beginning with the 2030 assessment date, while simultaneously phasing the supplemental homestead deduction up from 40% for taxes payable 2026 to 66.7% for 2031 and after. Those two schedules run on different clocks, one on the assessment date and one on the year taxes are first due and payable, and the supplemental deduction may not exceed 75% of gross assessed value. Any summary that names only one of the two legs is wrong in both directions.

So what should a homeowner or buyer conclude?

Three things, and we would rather be useful than reassuring.

First, the physical investment is real and documented by the companies making it. That is not a projection and it is not our characterization. It is Lilly’s and Meta’s own published capital commitments, plus INDOT’s completed interchange milestones and two utilities’ funded water programs. If your question is whether something substantial is being built next to Boone County, the answer is yes, and the evidence is a matter of public record.

Second, the headline employment figure is a forecast published by the entity marketing the district, at an undefined date. Treat it as a forecast. Forecasts of this kind have been right before and wrong before, and the difference between 50,000 jobs at full build and 50,000 jobs is the difference between a plan and a payroll.

Third, and this is the part most pages will not say: nobody can responsibly tell you what LEAP does to a specific house. There is no published dataset that isolates a LEAP effect on Boone County home values, and MIBOR does not publish below county level, so any town-specific LEAP number you are shown was derived by someone rather than measured. A county median that fell 9.03% in July while sales rose 19.13% is a composition story before it is a value story. If you want to know what your own house is worth in this market, that is a question about your house, your street and your recent comparable sales, and it has to be answered with those, not with a district.

What you can do is watch the right files. The mixed-use village RFP, the S.R. 32 realignment moving from proposed to funded, the 52@65 interchange opening on whatever date INDOT eventually reconciles and publishes, and Meta’s first buildings coming online in late 2027 are all things that will either happen on a public record or not. Those are the milestones worth tracking. The press release cycle is not.

Frequently Asked Questions