Marsh Added To Development Area Expansion
May 9, 2017 at 6:43 p.m.
By David [email protected]
With Marsh Supermarket announcing Thursday it was closing its Warsaw store, 500 S. Buffalo St., on May 21, that property between Winona Avenue and Prairie Street, along with the block east of South Buffalo Street between Winona and Prairie – including the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce and Wayne Township office – will be included into the expansion.
The expansion will take in Ind. 15 north and south from Fort Wayne Street to Gilliam Drive, east to the railroad tracks and west to include Center Lake and much of the central business district.
On the resolution, City Planner Jeremy Skinner told the Plan Commission, “We’d like to expand the Central Development Area. This was the original (Tax Increment Finance) district that the city created back in the very early ’90s. The intent of that district was to create opportunities for downtown. The project at that time in the early ‘90s was the Zimmer headquarters. This was the TIF district that created that opportunity for Zimmer to locate its headquarters downtown. This is the same TIF district that we did the city hall with and now we’re doing Buffalo Street with.”
The intent of the expansion of the development area is “to expand a couple of opportunities that came out of a number of public hearings and studies we did. Imagine Warsaw, a few years back now, one of the things they identified was that (Ind.) 15 corridor and trying to create redevelopment opportunities in that corridor.”
The city has been thinking about expanding the Central Development Area for a numbers of years. A couple of restaurants have approached the city about considering expanding the area up along Ind. 15N to Gilliam Drive to give them some opportunities to create a riverfront district so they can get liquor licenses from the state. The city wanted to first make sure the expansion was going to do what it and the public wanted it to do, Skinner said.
“At this point, rather than just taking in a few properties here and there, we decided to kind of follow what that Imagine Warsaw comprehensive plan outlined as opportunities for redevelopment, and we would like to expand that district in those areas,” he said.
The Redevelopment Commission reviewed the resolution and approved it May 1. After the plan commission’s approval, Skinner said it would move on to the City Council for its approval and then back to the Redevelopment Commission for the confirming resolution.
Since the Redevelopment Commission reviewed it last week, there has been a development, Skinner said.
“So everybody by now knows that Marsh is closing. Originally, I had anticipated or thought about including Marsh in the district expansion, but I didn’t want to send a message that Marsh was closing. I didn’t expect it to happen in the next week obviously, but certainly it was probably expected at some point in time. It was not like they were doing a lot of great business down there,” he said.
In talking to legal representation, Skinner said it was decided the Marsh and Chamber of Commerce blocks could be added to the expansion as long as the Plan Commission approves not only the resolution but the addition of those properties. The legal description would be included in the final resolution adopted by the Redevelopment Commission and the City Council would follow suit.
With no public comments, the Plan Commission approved the resolution that includes the additional properties in the 500 block of South Buffalo Street.
Latest News
E-Editions
With Marsh Supermarket announcing Thursday it was closing its Warsaw store, 500 S. Buffalo St., on May 21, that property between Winona Avenue and Prairie Street, along with the block east of South Buffalo Street between Winona and Prairie – including the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce and Wayne Township office – will be included into the expansion.
The expansion will take in Ind. 15 north and south from Fort Wayne Street to Gilliam Drive, east to the railroad tracks and west to include Center Lake and much of the central business district.
On the resolution, City Planner Jeremy Skinner told the Plan Commission, “We’d like to expand the Central Development Area. This was the original (Tax Increment Finance) district that the city created back in the very early ’90s. The intent of that district was to create opportunities for downtown. The project at that time in the early ‘90s was the Zimmer headquarters. This was the TIF district that created that opportunity for Zimmer to locate its headquarters downtown. This is the same TIF district that we did the city hall with and now we’re doing Buffalo Street with.”
The intent of the expansion of the development area is “to expand a couple of opportunities that came out of a number of public hearings and studies we did. Imagine Warsaw, a few years back now, one of the things they identified was that (Ind.) 15 corridor and trying to create redevelopment opportunities in that corridor.”
The city has been thinking about expanding the Central Development Area for a numbers of years. A couple of restaurants have approached the city about considering expanding the area up along Ind. 15N to Gilliam Drive to give them some opportunities to create a riverfront district so they can get liquor licenses from the state. The city wanted to first make sure the expansion was going to do what it and the public wanted it to do, Skinner said.
“At this point, rather than just taking in a few properties here and there, we decided to kind of follow what that Imagine Warsaw comprehensive plan outlined as opportunities for redevelopment, and we would like to expand that district in those areas,” he said.
The Redevelopment Commission reviewed the resolution and approved it May 1. After the plan commission’s approval, Skinner said it would move on to the City Council for its approval and then back to the Redevelopment Commission for the confirming resolution.
Since the Redevelopment Commission reviewed it last week, there has been a development, Skinner said.
“So everybody by now knows that Marsh is closing. Originally, I had anticipated or thought about including Marsh in the district expansion, but I didn’t want to send a message that Marsh was closing. I didn’t expect it to happen in the next week obviously, but certainly it was probably expected at some point in time. It was not like they were doing a lot of great business down there,” he said.
In talking to legal representation, Skinner said it was decided the Marsh and Chamber of Commerce blocks could be added to the expansion as long as the Plan Commission approves not only the resolution but the addition of those properties. The legal description would be included in the final resolution adopted by the Redevelopment Commission and the City Council would follow suit.
With no public comments, the Plan Commission approved the resolution that includes the additional properties in the 500 block of South Buffalo Street.
Have a news tip? Email [email protected] or Call/Text 360-922-3092