Flaherty & Collins Properties finally will break ground on its 28-story, $121 million downtown apartment project anchored by a Whole Foods store on Wednesday.
The local developer told IBJ that the ceremonial groundbreaking with Mayor Greg Ballard for Market Square Tower will start at 9 a.m.
Actual construction work should begin within two weeks, said Jim Crossin, Flaherty & Collins’ vice president of development. The project is expected to take about two years.
The developer closed its portion of the project’s financing in mid-January. Some construction-related costs have risen since the project’s announcement in July 2013, Crossin said, helping push its price tag from $81 million when first proposed to $121 million.
Flaherty & Collins originally had hoped to begin construction last May, and later pushed the date to October.
“It’s just a complicated project that took some extra time to get it all pulled together,” Crossin told IBJ.
The 28-story skyscraper will be built on the parking lot northeast of Market and Alabama streets where part of Market Square Arena once sat.
The project calls for 300 luxury apartments, 500 parking spaces and 43,600 square feet of ground-floor retail space, much of it occupied by Whole Foods. It also will feature a rooftop pool and garden, and apartments with floor-to-ceiling windows and panoramic views of the city renting for between $1,300 and $2,400 per month.
The city has agreed to contribute up to $23 million in financing for the project.
Market Square Tower will rise from the ground simultaneously with Cummins Inc.’s $30 million global distribution headquarters directly to the south, to be built on the parking lot fronting East Washington Street.
The Columbus, Indiana-based diesel engine manufacturer expects to break ground on the project in April and finish in late 2016.
If that’s not enough construction activity for the Market Square district, Milhaus Development LLC is constructing the second phase of its Artistry apartment project to the east, while work on the IndyGo transit center to the west is under way.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.