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Press Release
2:36 p.m. EST, January 24, 2012
Indianapolis—
Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard was joined by Joe Kelley, President and CEO of Marsh Supermarkets, and Jerry Collins, President of Flaherty and Collins Properties, to announce a major new development project on the near north side called “Block 400” Tuesday. The $85 million project features two mixed-use buildings that will include ground floor retail, 487 apartments, a 40,000-square-foot urban prototype Marsh Supermarket and parking garages featuring more than 1,500 spaces.
“This development will connect the OneAmerica and IUPUI campuses and bring a much-needed, full-service grocery store to people living on the Near North and West sides,” said Mayor Ballard. “This project also will spur additional opportunities in the surrounding area that already is seeing a great deal of growth and expansion activity.”
An upscale 40,000-square-foot Marsh Supermarket will anchor a mixed-use development located on the southeast corner of Michigan Street and Senate Avenue named “The Axis @ Block 400.” The new Marsh, slated to open in the summer of 2013, will feature top-quality meats and seafood; fresh produce; an extensive deli with gourmet cheeses; a bakery with fresh-baked breads, cakes, and pastries; and a wide selection of beer and wine, including labels from local brew masters and vintners. The new Marsh also will offer an extensive salad bar and other prepared meals that may be purchased for carry-out or enjoyed in the store’s mezzanine-level dining area.
There's more, at that link. Including -
In addition to the Marsh, “The Axis @ Block 400” will house 325 residential units and a 435-space parking garage.
The second building, “The Point @ Block 400,” will occupy the triangular parcel bordered by Michigan Street and Senate and Indiana avenues. It will offer 10,000 square feet of street-level retail, 162 residential units and 180 structured parking spaces to serve its residents and retail patrons.
The residences in the Block 400 development will include one and two bedroom apartments, featuring granite countertops, roman soaking tubs, and stainless steel appliances. Residents also will have access to amenities such as a fitness center, heated saltwater pool and sundeck. Anticipated rents are $1,075 to $2,200 per month.
“The Block 400 development will be transformative for the Canal District,” said Jerry Collins, President of Flaherty & Collins Properties. “The new Marsh supermarket is the best possible complement to our luxury apartments and for the Cosmopolitan on the Canal, which gained full occupancy in less than seven months after opening. We are pleased to bring new growth in the retail and residential market at a time when downtown is stronger than ever. This venture would not be possible without the foresight and ingenuity of the City of Indianapolis, Marsh and OneAmerica.”
To replace OneAmerica employee parking being used for this development and provide limited additional public parking in the area, the City will build a 930-space parking garage along the eastern half of the block bordered by New York, Illinois, and Vermont streets and Capitol Avenue. The parking structure will be connected to the OneAmerica tower by an elevated skywalk. The city will invest approximately $11 million in this facility through the downtown TIF.
Bingo. An answer, somebody gets a free parking ramp, but with several porkers feeding at the public trough it is unclear from that report who it is. There is that OneAmerica thing, which sounds as if it's existing business, and not Flaherty-Collins getting the freebie this time. But the freebie's being thrown in to sweeten the trough - to make feeding better. Now, there is this, the story subheadline:
The $85 million project features two mixed-use buildings that will include ground floor retail, 487 apartments, a 40,000-square-foot urban prototype Marsh Supermarket and parking garages featuring more than 1,500 spaces.
Did you catch that "ground floor retail." Snkcker, snicker. Some get it up front. Some don't, and have to beg and dither.
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Indy Star has its own reporting,
The $85 million mixed-use project was outlined this afternoon by developer Flaherty and Collins Properties, which owns the adjacent Cosmopolitan apartments at Michigan Street and Capitol Avenue.
The City of Indianapolis will kick in $11 million to build a 930-unit parking garage on an adjacent block that will be used by insurance company OneAmerica, which is losing hundreds of parking spots for its employees to the apartment project.
Groundbreaking for the project, called Block 400, will start this spring, with the Marsh store and the first 325 apartment units opening in summer 2013 on the block bordered by Michigan, Senate, Capitol and Vermont streets. The remaining 162 units, on a triangular lot bordered by Indiana Avenue and Senate and Michigan, will open in 2015.
Flaherty and Collins, a locally based national apartment developer with 11,000 units under management, said the success of its 218-unit Comopolitan project led to the company’s desire to expand its apartment holdings Downtown.
“We’re just very bullish on Downtown Indianapolis,” said President Jerry Collins.
Flaherty and Collins will buy the large block, used for surface parking, from OneAmerica. The developer already owns the smaller triangular-shaped plot.
Marsh plans a 40,000-square-foot urban prototype grocery on the site that will include extra space for produce, meats and a bakery. Marsh’s current downtown store is at Vermont and Alabama streets and is one of the most successful stores in the 97-store chain, said President Joe Kelley.
The project will include another 15,000 square feet of space for additional retail uses that include restaurants.
They get restaurants, up front in the proposal. We got obstruction and whining and an attempted cost handoff for a stinking 3000 sq. ft. of retail. Go figure. Deal making expertise, of Flaherty's counterparty will vary, as will overall attractiveness of a project.
IBJ also does its own writing, its report being somewhat cumulative, but with a $2 million difference, parking subsidy wise.
The plan by Flaherty & Collins Properties calls for 487 apartments, the grocery store, a parking garage and additional retail space on properties bounded by Michigan Street, Capitol Avenue, Vermont Street and Indiana Avenue.Well, eleven million, thirteen, what's the difference when it's not private sector money, but taxpayers' loot?
Much of the land needed for the development—dubbed "Block 400"—is owned by locally based OneAmerica Financial Partners Inc., which uses it for employee parking. To make way for the development, the city would foot the roughly $13 million cost of building a 930-space parking garage for OneAmerica at the northwest corner of Illinois and New York streets.
The total cost of the development, including the city's contribution from tax-increment financing district revenues, will be about $85 million. The deal will not include a property-tax abatement.
That seems to be a theme. I may, of course, be mistaken. Of the projected $85 million total cost, none of the reporting delved into how much actual Flaherty-Collins capital would be ponied up, up front, and invested.
We in Ramsey know that's a question, yet, this current Indianapolis reporting ignores it.
That wraps up all the reporting on the latest Flaherty-Collins adventuring I am aware of.
Interesting - Collins is now identified as the firm's president. Either they alternate or do an annual coin flip, or there's voodoo to it. But Flaherty's been the identified point-man, head man, Ramsey-wise.
_____________UPDATE______________
Another thing unclear in the reporting - whether the counterparty in this latest instance had Ryan Cronk on the inside, as its purported fiduciary, while dealing at arms length with Flaherty and Collins on terms and conditions.
__________FURTHER UPDATE__________
The guess is that, as in Ramsey, a thinly capitalized LLC will be interposed. Absent reporting to the contrary that is a likelihood. Analyzing, FC buys land, a "parking lot" of an existing venture, the existing venture gets a city built ramp, and FC builds on the "parking lot" including its own ramp. Without the city being a player in the three way adventure, FC would have had to accommodate the existing venture's parking needs. So, it benefits indirectly from the subsidy vs. directly having its tenant parking ramp built for it from public money, as in Ramsey. "Six of one and a half dozen of the other" is the old saying that fits.