Chicago developer selected for $200 million apartment, grocery project in Michigan City
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Rendering of the 5th and Pine street development in Michigan City. The city is moving forward with DAC Developments to build the project which will include over 500 apartments and a grocery store. (Rendering provided, DAC Developments)
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Rendering of the 5th and Pine street development in Michigan City. The city is moving forward with DAC Developments to build the project which will include over 500 apartments and a grocery store. (Rendering provided, DAC Developments)
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Rendering of the 5th and Pine street development in Michigan City. The city is moving forward with DAC Developments to build the project which will include over 500 apartments and a grocery store. (Rendering provided, DAC Developments)
Michigan City officials have preliminarily selected a developer and are moving forward with a major project to bring a grocery store and as many as 540 apartments to the city’s burgeoning downtown core.
The $200 million project is known for now as the 5th and Pine project as it would go in on three blocks in the city’s downtown, starting at the corner of 5th and Pine streets and working east.
Clarence Hulse, a member of Michigan City’s Redevelopment Commission and executive director of Economic Development Corp. Michigan City, told Inside INdiana Business the redevelopment commission is beginning negotiations with Chicago-based DAC Developments to build the mixed-used development.
Hulse said the fact DAC is the only developer to have a memorandum of understanding with a grocery store in hand made it the most attractive option. Hulse and other Michigan City officials have emphasized the need for a grocery store in the downtown area, calling it a food desert.
“It’s expanding our downtown eastward. It’s also the missing link for people living downtown,” said Hulse. “We’re expecting roughly 2,000 more people in the next five years living downtown. So having a grocer in the middle of all that is huge to get people to live and work and shop downtown.”
Hulse wouldn’t say which grocery store brand is attached to DAC, just that it’s a chain that operates in the Chicago area.
Hulse said the city is now entering into negotiations with DAC, so details aren’t yet finalized.
But the overview of the project will be a $200 million build over two phases. The first phase should include 200-300 apartment units with retail space. A second phase would add more than 200 units and the grocery store. In total, rough estimates would see the whole complex sport 540 apartment units, a 40,000 square-foot grocery store, and close to 17,000 square feet of additional retail space.
In a presentation to city leaders, DAC believes it could break ground next year and possibly have phase one ready in late 2028 or early 2029. It would be DAC’s first project in Indiana.
The three-block parcel in downtown was once the site of a hospital years ago before the city acquired the land. Michigan City received nine development proposals for the site before going with DAC, though there is no information about those bids in redevelopment commission documents.
A formal development agreement with DAC would need to be voted on by the full redevelopment commission.
Progress on the 5th and Pine street site comes as major development projects are popping up all over the lakefront city in northwest Indiana.
The $311 SoLa tower is finally set to break ground this summer, and construction is scheduled to wrap up next summer on the $101 million Franklin Tower apartment complex near the city’s South Shore Line station on 11th Street.
Those projects are set to transform Michigan City and make possible a grocery store downtown. Hulse says grocery chains have told him they need 2,000-3,000 people living within a mile to make a store viable.
“It’s nice to have restaurants and bars; it’s nice to have offices, but if you want to attract residents in your downtown and make it a vibrant downtown, you have to be able to have grocery shopping,” said Hulse.