The city will have the power to redevelop its two main gateways of the Borman Expressway by creating two separate allocation areas.
The Hammond Redevelopment Commission voted 5-0 Tuesday to allow Cender & Co., a municipal accounting firm, to craft allocation areas on Kennedy and Calumet avenues, on both sides of the streets, between Interstate 80/94 and 165th Street. The allocation areas will encompass just the two streets and not the residential sections between them, making them two separate entities, said Cender Executive Dan Botich.
The allocation areas, much like tax increment financing districts, will allow the planning commission to start thinking further ahead in terms of what the city would like to see coming off I-80/94. What it won’t do is give the city eminent domain, Botich said.
Instead, it will give planners the chance to group parcels together for future projects if and when the land becomes available.
Planning and Development Executive Director Phil Taillon said since the areas are clearly aging, having the allocation areas in place will make development – and financing the infrastructure repairs once it’s in – easier for the city to complete and maintain.
The commission will pay no more than $30,000 for Cender to complete the work, and the plans need to go through several more steps, including a public hearing, before it’ll be approved.
Also approved at the meeting is an office building the likes of which Northwest Indiana hasn’t yet seen.
The commission voted 5-0 to approve a development agreement with Hobart-based ATG Real Estate Development LLC for a 3-story, 36,000-square-foot, $6 million office building on a 3.5-acre site across the street from Buffalo Wild Wings in Oxbow Landing. The office building will be rated “Class A,” meaning it’ll be made of high-quality materials and will house high-end business, such as doctor and attorney offices, Taillon said.
The commission will provide the ATG with $1.6 million in incentives through economic development bonds, Redevelopment Attorney David Westland said.
A second office building that was to be built in Oxbow Landing has been tabled for the time being because the developer has changed the footprint, Taillon said. He said whatever that developer has in mind, its plans will now start from scratch.