Rendering: $85M project calls for Marsh and apartments

An $85 million project anchored by a new Marsh grocery store would transform an expanse of surface parking lots in the northwest quadrant of downtown. The plan by Flaherty & Collins Properties calls for 487 apartments, the first new Marsh store since 2004, a parking garage and additional retail space on properties bounded by Michigan Street, Capitol Avenue, Vermont Street and Indiana Avenue. Mayor Greg Ballard, Marsh CEO Joe Kelley and officials with Flaherty & Collins announced the project, first reported at IBJ.com, at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. Much of the land needed for the development 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 apartment community will be known as The Axis. The 40,000-square-foot Marsh, at Michigan and Senate streets, would occupy the first floor and is scheduled to open in the summer of 2013. The chain also will keep its store in the Lockerbie neighborhood. What do you think?