News

“Instant college town” open at University’s southern edge
Eddy Street Commons brings urban living to South Bend
BY GENE STOWE, FOR NDWORKS

Eddy Street opened through Eddy Street Commons in time for the first home game, revealing the long-awaited instant “college town” that provides a welcoming front porch to campus at its Angela Boulevard threshold.

Despite a down economy, most of the space in Phase 1—between Angela and Napoleon—is taken, says Greg Hakanen, Notre Dame’s director of asset management and real estate.

“Approximately 65 percent of the space has been leased, which is really phenomenal in the current economy,” he says. “The retail part of it is doing very well, given the economic times.”

The urban mixed-used development creates, for the first time, an accessible college-town environment for Notre Dame’s campus community.

“My definition of a college town is stores, restaurants and entertainment within easy walking distance of the campus,” says Hakanen.

Eddy Street Commons businesses, including a Chipotle restaurant, Outpost Sports and Hot Box Pizza will be opening over the next few weeks,.

The project has 90,000 square feet of retail space and 82,000 square feet of office space. University offices will occupy two of the three floors in the office building, although the units moving over have not yet been announced.

“It looks like the first occupancies will take place in November and the first quarter of next year,” Hakanen says.

The Foundry West, the first of three buildings with rental apartments on the upper floors, was already four-fifths leased when it opened in mid-August, and some 10 percent of future buildings are pre-leased. That project is built and managed by Buckingham Companies of Indianapolis.

The first Champions Row City Homes are under construction and are scheduled to open later this year. The 119-room Fairfield Inn and Suites hotel has broken ground and is scheduled to be open in time for the 2010 football season.

Kite Realty Group of Indianapolis is developer of Eddy Street Commons, the latest in a broad range of developments near campus supported by Notre Dame in collaboration with City of South Bend and other local groups. Phase 1 was built on land Notre Dame owned.

“From the University’s point of view, this is Notre Dame’s ‘front door.’ It reflects on the University,” Hakanen says. “Under Father Malloy, the University started building bridges to the community and to South Bend, and Father Jenkins has energetically continued that outreach.

Among other things, the University has helped revive the Harter Heights neighborhood, a historic residential area south of campus that had been in decline. A project along Notre Dame Avenue fosters construction of new homes designed to blend into the neighborhood.

“The Notre Dame Avenue Housing Program has been ongoing since 2002,” Hakanen says,“ and progresses according to the availability of buildable lots,” usually three or four a year.

“What’s happening here is driven by the University in collaboration with other area institutions that make up the Northeast Neighborhood Revitalization Organization,” including the city of South Bend, Memorial and St. Joseph hospitals and Madison Center. “The NNRO, working with South Bend Heritage Foundation and neighborhood residents, formulated the underlying plan, which includes seven different redevelopment zones.”

Heritage Foundation for years has developed individual affordable houses in the Northeast Neighborhood, and it’s now making plans for the Triangle. Heritage also is making plans for Eddy south of Five Points—“the next frontier,” Hakanen says.

Along Angela, Eddy Street Commons, Innovation Park and the IU Medical School form a powerful synergistic development.

The University has also helped shape transportation routes, removing the Juniper Drive artery from the heart of the pedestrian campus and improving Twyckenham Drive.

“The University invested mightily,” Hakanen says, adding that University officials met with neighbors and responded to their concerns, such as keeping Bulla from connecting directly to campus.

The extension of Napoleon, which used to dead-end at Eddy, has just been opened to State Road 23, and Twyckenham, now cut off between 23 and Edison, will be opened when the state completes its widening of 23 and reconfiguration of Five Points.

And development won’t stop there. Eddy Street Commons is slated for expansion.

“Phase 2 will be the next two blocks south on Eddy Street,” Hakanen says. “We’ll get market feedback based on Phase 1. That will play into the planning for Phase 2.”