By Kurt Christian 812-331-4350 | kchristian@heraldt.com | Jul 25, 2018
Attendees at Wednesday’s public input session didn’t have a problem imagining the redeveloped eastside Kmart property as a tiered wedding cake, though they did have questions about just how high that cake should stand.
The 12-acre property at 3216 E. Third St. is currently zoned commercial arterial, a designation designed to promote commercial developments along major thoroughfares. Trinitas Ventures and a team of urban planners produced three sketches early Wednesday afternoon to show attendees just how the District at Latimer Square could provide mixed uses with an eye on the community’s wants and needs.
Already, elements of those early mockups are beyond what’s allowed under city code.
Scott Freres, president of Lakota Group, said the project’s retail and office buildings will probably only rise to three or four stories. Larger buildings, such as a hotel or residential buildings on the southern and western sides of the property, could stand as high as six to eight stories.
“We plan to build up and in to preserve what’s out, which is your natural landscape,” said Ryan Call, an associate principal and director at ELS architecture and urban design.
Generally, structures that tall would need city approval to deviate from building code, which limits buildings in a commercial arterial zone to a maximum height of 50 feet. Trinitas Ventures has options in moving forward with those heights, which Freres said are reflective of other economically sustainable mixed-use properties across the country.
The development group plans to create a planned unit development after the final public input sessions, according to Travis Vencel, executive vice president of development for Trinitas Ventures. By requesting the special zoning designation, Trinitas Ventures would be able to argue the different aspects of its proposal that would otherwise be blocked by city code based upon the benefits their project might bring.
Trinitas Ventures narrowed its focus to three plans Wednesday. Each plan outlined residential uses on the eastern and southern property lines, while commercial uses were pushed toward the College Mall on the western border and East Third Street to the north.
Other themes that remained constant across all preliminary plans included: taller buildings on the property’s southwest side; intentional street-level frontage to the northeast that would act as an aesthetic gateway into the city; and consistent square footage amounts divvied up between the project’s retail, office, hotel, residential and public spaces.
The plans differed in how they broke the 12 acres into different blocks. One plan, which Call dubbed the “Bloomington Grid Concept,” draws upon the city’s downtown block structure while consolidating pedestrian movement in a central spine.
“One of the goals of this project should be to leverage our connections with other places,” Freres said.
Another idea looks at creating a retail main street that’s treated more as an accessible plaza for festivals or markets rather than what’s typically thought of as a motorway. The third plan’s defining characteristic is a 100-foot-wide internal plaza leading to a greenway path for an eventual connection to the Latimer Woods to the south.
Components of each plan are somewhat interchangeable and members of the public can still see their suggestions reflected in the final plan by attending today’s session. Those who can’t make it in person can comment online at courbanize.com/projects/trinitas-latimer/information.
Trinitas Ventures’ last open house is expected to deal with the three-dimensional and architectural elements of the project. From there, developers will meet with the city’s planning department and neighboring property owners in September. Vencel expects the project will officially be submitted to the city’s plan commission in October or November before it’s reviewed by the city council early next year. At any point in the process, the plans may change.
“It’s really very flexible at this point,” Call said.
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