Auburn Auction Park sold, to become youth sports complex

Media reports in northeast Indiana share news of the sale of Auburn Auction Park, for 50 years the site of collector car auctions, to a group that plans to convert the location to a youth sports complex called Auburn Sports Park.

J.T. Fisher Properties purchase reportedly was secured this past week, WANE-TV reported. Fisher Properties plans to convert the primary 168-acre site into a $42 million sports complex while offering the 70 acres south of County Road 11-A for sale to other developers for hotels, restaurants and retail outlets.

An RM Sotheby’s official confirmed the sale with the ClassicCars.com Journal on January 26 in Phoenix, where RM Sotheby’s was staging its annual Arizona auction.

Auburn Auction Park dates back half a century to Kruse Auctions and its collector car sales, which had outgrown their former location at the local high school. The auctions began to help support the annual Auburn Cord Duesenberg Festival. Auburn, Indiana, is the home of the former car company of the same name, and to the ACD Automotive Museum housed in the former Auburn headquarters building.

Kruse sold the auction site to RM Auctions in 2011.

The auction grounds are just south of Auburn, adjacent to Interstate 69, and just across that highway from the home of Worldwide Auctioneers and its event center facilities.

If the local planning commission approves the plan at its meeting in March, the sports complex will include indoor basketball/volleyball courts (likely using the current buildings on the site), as well as soccer/lacrosse fields, baseball/softball fields, football fields, and a 4-season dome indoor facility. 

The TV station quoted the head of the Dekalb County Economic Development Partnership as praising the transition because it puts the land in use year around rather than just during the Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends.

The local Star newspaper and its website reported that in addition to Joe and Terri Fisher, the Auburn Sports Group includes Rod and Grant Sims and Cole Walker. The Sims have been involved in a similar sports complex near Indianapolis.