Four homes conspicuously remain on plots that the university likely wanted as parking for the new classroom building

Redevelopment – one block at a time

Contributed By:The 411 News

What should be done about Gary? Ask any 10 people. Hands down, nine of them will have an opinion. From more swimming pools to less crime to adding a Star Bucks or a Walmart.

The civil city leaders have come forward with their plans, too. There was the Buffington Harbor Plan, a vision of the Scott King administration and casino owner Don Barden to develop a marina, convention center, recreation and entertainment venues, and residences along Gary’s western lakefront.

Some 14 years later, the 2003 University Park Plan –another idea from the King administration – has been revived by Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson for redevelopment of neighborhoods in Glen Park. The 2003 plan envisioned improving the residential and commercial areas near Indiana University Northwest, Ivy Tech Community College, and the Gary Career Center.

When IUN’s new Arts & Sciences classroom building opens in August, it will serve students from IUN and Ivy Tech, and the $45 million facility is also the anchor for the city’s redevelopment plans. A new classroom building wasn’t part of the 2003 plan. Its construction only came about because of the 2008 flooding that destroyed Tamarack Hall, the university’s oldest classroom building.

Taking up the entire block of 35th & Broadway, the new Arts & Sciences building is the city’s drawing card to attract private development to University Park. Its boundaries are I-80/94 on the north, east to I-65, west to Grant Street and south to Ridge Road.

Early in May, the city’s Redevelopment Commission issued a MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with Brinshore Development, LLC to act as the master developer for the University Park and University Park East project.

Based in Northbrook, IL, the company has helped municipalities and non-profits across the Midwest develop housing solutions; its largest portfolio of projects is in Chicago.

Brinshore will replicate what IUN did but in an area many times larger. And instead of a single building, it will follow the city’s directions to accommodate affordable housing, a mix of residential and commercial land use, recreation and green spaces. It will recruit other developers and help the city lure investment capital for the project.

Brinshore will have to purchase lands in the project area and will likely contend with property owners who won’t sell, just as the university has had to work around several homeowners on Massachusetts Street. Four homes conspicuously remain on plots that the university likely wanted as parking for the new classroom building.

Joe van Dyk, director of the city’s Redevelopment Department said he understands that some homeowners don’t want to sell. “They live in those homes. Our biggest problems are with speculators, local and nationwide. They have bought numerous properties at tax sales and don’t occupy them.”

Land speculators are able to hold on to the properties, many coming up delinquent on their own tax payments but still remain as the owner of record for several years. If their properties become desirable, they’re able to take big profits on the sales.

There are many pockets in University Park East consumed by the blight of decades-long vacant and abandoned properties. A well-maintained home may have a shell of a house next door. Some blocks may only have a few occupied homes with the remaining lots vacant and gone back to nature. Flooding has deteriorated street pavements and sidewalks.

A summary of the area from the University Park East website details a “31% population loss between 2000 and 2010; of the 1,032 existing structures, 28% are vacant. Nearly a quarter of the existing homes are also in major disrepair (poor or dangerous condition), which includes both occupied and unoccupied homes. Compounding the challenge of addressing housing conditions is that of the 1,988 parcels in the neighborhood (including vacant lots), 413 (21%) are currently on the tax-sale list.”

Developers and investors see that picture, but they also see University Park East’s potential for growth. It has the city’s two institutions of higher education that bring in over 10,000 students, faculty and staff on a daily basis; it has convenient access to major northwest Indiana transportation routes; and it has the land for new developments.

Story Posted:05/29/2017