Platt Park Apartment Construction Update
Ah Spring. The season where delicate flowers poke their heads up through the warming soil and are soon greeted with a gentle covering of construction dust. Where the melodic chirps of birds mingle with the beeping and grinding of backhoes and dump trucks. Yes folks spring is here and with it a rash of construction that once again encircles us. So fitting we bring you our construction update so at least you know from whence the dust hails. The Platt Park Apartment scene is getting seeing some big changes. Here are the two biggest projects:
The Henry. If your travels take you frequently along Mississippi (think Sprouts Market) then you have already found ground zero for local construction projects on the grand scale. Chief amongst the local projects is the apartment building being built on the northwest corner of Logan and Mississippi. I dropped in to get a bit more feel for this beast to see what is in store. The project is now being called The Henry.
The seven-story project consists of 403 units most of which will be conventional apartments but there will be 30 ground floor townhome-style (two story) units as well. The developers are billing this a “very high end” apartment project, which will be interesting to see how that translates in rent in this already sky-high rental market. There will be an interior courtyard with a pool and a dog park (not open to the public). All parking will be underground and on site (thank you). There will be no commercial space, which I found a bit surprising. The poor souls will have to trek a bit to get their morning coffee. A bike/pedestrian path will be constructed along the north side—sort of a continuation of Buchtel, which will be for public use making getting over to the Broadway Light Rail station a bit easier on bike or foot. Aesthetically, I feared a big rectangular block, 7-stories tall so all-in-all not so bad I think, but beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Scheduled completion is next spring.
The other large Platt Park apartment project is the Hanover-Broadway Station. So usually in my side-job as a crack investigative reporter for the Platt Park Post I wander around and ask questions finding most people at ease telling me what I want to know. So it was with usual expectations I strolled into the office of the Hanover Company who are doing the big project covering most of the block from Broadway to Lincoln between Mississippi and Arizona.
Me, “So what ya building over here?”
Them, “Who wants to know?”
Me, “The little neighborhood newspaper”
Them, “Sorry we are not at liberty to say but we’ll get back to you on it”
Me, “Could I just take a picture of that drawing you have over there?
Them, “Sorry I can’t let you do that”
And so on…
Some version of that conversation went on a few times as I dropped by repeatedly hoping somebody could feel they had the authority to tell me IT’S GOING TO BE AN APARTMENT BUILDING, but persistence eventually won out so here’s what we know. There will be 303 units. Some on the ground floor will be live/work so there will be some version of commercial on the ground floor. There will be six stories on the Broadway & Mississippi sides gradually stepping down to three stories along Lincoln. Once again the stated goal is “very high end” apartments. Completion will not be till around early 2018.
So between those two housing projects, 700-plus apartments will be coming on line in the next year or so. If we add to that total the other apartments recently constructed around Broadway and Mississippi that brings the total number of new housing units to around 2000. To put that in perspective all Platt Park has less than 3000 housing units so those projects will have nearly added a second Platt Park to the neighborhood when completed. That my friends does not take into account what will be eventually added on the Gates Redevelopment site—yikes! No wonder its getting harder getting into Park Burger on Friday night.
Okay, there is your Platt Park apartment construction update for now. Lots of other projects out there which will update you on later. See you around the neighborhood
Tom Snyder