Lawrence mattress maker plans showcase store, retail center in Fort Ben area

The planned retail center will feature a store for Comfort Option alongside other tenants. (Rendering courtesy of Foamcraft Inc.)

A Lawrence-based foam fabricator is developing a retail project next to the city’s branch of the Indianapolis Public Library, with a focus on luring upscale tenants to complement a new store for its Comfort Option mattress brand.

Foamcraft Inc. broke ground Tuesday morning on the nearly 15,000-square-foot development, which will be called The Corner at Fort Ben. Expected to cost anywhere from $5 million to $10 million, the project marks the first time Foamcraft has ventured into direct development of retail space for one of its products.

The project will occupy a 2.7-acre parcel at 9440 E. 56th St. and offer space for up to six tenants, including Comfort Option. The development also will have a surface parking lot, several common areas and rooftop patio seating.

While specific tenant space configurations haven’t been finalized, the mattress store is expected to anchor the development, with Foamcraft eyeing other locally-based tenants ranging from an ice cream shop to a coffee shop to a bakery. The development is expected to open by mid-2026.

“There are a lot of things that Lawrence has and a lot of things that it doesn’t, so we really want to bring in some [users] that will provide a benefit to the community … to be able to connect people together,” said Nathan Elliott, chief marketing officer of Foamcraft and one of the company’s six family stakeholders.

He said Foamcraft plans to maintain regular contact with Keystone Group, which is building a $70 million, 248-unit apartment and retail project directly west of the library, known as The Benjamin. A development timeline for that project was not immediately available, but construction fencing has been erected at the site and dirt is being moved.

The intent of collaborating with Keystone, Elliott said, would be to avoid creating unnecessary competition and overlap between the two properties’ retail offerings.

A representative with Indianapolis-based Keystone told IBJ on Tuesday morning that while no formal conversations have yet taken place, the firm is open to discussing tenants with Foamcraft.

Foamcraft was founded in 1952 with a focus on supplying foam filling for furniture, mattresses and other products. It has five facilities across Indiana, including near the Fort Benjamin Harrison complex in Lawrence, where it has been headquartered since 2001. The company is in its third generation of family ownership.

Comfort Option was launched as a division of Foamcraft in 2017, with the company billing the direct-to-consumer product as “customized, rebuildable” mattresses. The approach, Elliott said, gives buyers more control over the product and an opportunity to have it reconfigured if it doesn’t meet their needs.

While the mattress seller conducts most of its business online, it has a showcase store inside The Fashion Mall at Keystone that opened in 2019. The Corner at Fort Ben store would be its second.

The 2.7-acre plot of land currently is vacant. Foamcraft recently acquired it from the Fort Harrison Reuse Authority, but Elliott declined to reveal terms of the deal.

He said the company initially only planned to open a new mattress store, but the project quickly evolved into a larger-scale retail development.

“We decided that if we really want to grow this brand, let’s own, build and operate the building, as that will give us more flexibility and more sustainability,” he said. “We then very quickly learned that, from a cost perspective, we needed some other tenants to really contribute to it and make the numbers work. … So it really grew into that community piece where we can accomplish all this and partner with our community.”