One out of seven concrete slabs have been poured at the future site of a couple hundred apartment units off Empire Street.
Bloomington leaders and representatives from construction and engineering firms working on the project “broke ground” at a ceremony Tuesday afternoon for Empire Flats, though construction is well underway.
The currently dusty site at 1312 E. Empire St. will eventually house around 210 apartment units. Construction crews plan to pour all the concrete slabs before the end of the year, at a pace of one a week, weather permitting.
From there, project planners with Holladay Properties hope to have the $41 million complex built by spring 2028.
Vice President of Development at Holladay Mike Doyle said most of those will be one- and two-bedroom units, but there will be some three-bedroom and studio apartments.
Rent prices are not determined yet, but the Empire Flats website does list a pet fee of $350 and monthly pet rent of $35 monthly for a cat and $60 monthly for a dog. Rental rates will be set about four to five months out from the opening.
Plans also include a clubhouse, an outdoor pet park, a fitness center, and outdoor grilling areas. While those amenities may come with a cost, Doyle believes that will keep tenants staying for longer.
“What we feel and what we’ve proven in our buildings is that by making these places feel very homey, like a community and like a good place to live, our residents live there longer,” Doyle said. “Whereas if you have a building where you don’t have some of those things you may have 80% turnover every year.”
The Empire Flats property is located within an enterprise zone and a tax increment financing district. Doyle said both are helping to offset the cost of construction.
“With the increase cost of borrowing and the run-up in construction cost, these projects are often not financially feasible on their own, and so what they often require is municipal support to get them off the ground.”
Holladay Properties is vertically integrated, meaning the firm has internal departments for the design, construction, property management and possible sale of the property.
That cuts down on the back-and-forth between architects, engineers and builders, because they can communicate continually on the project. Doyle said that can also keep costs down, because a builder can more quickly tell an architect if a design choice will be too expensive.
Doyle also credited Bloomington city staff with their work on permitting and pre-construction work.
“The City of Bloomington has been one of my favorite municipalities to work with,” Doyle said. “A big part of these projects where you can lose a lot of time is review on the front end. So you have a big stack of construction documents… and you ship them off to the city for review.. sometimes it takes cities six weeks to get back to you for comments.”
Doyle said that can complicate things because architects and engineers may have moved on to other projects in that time, delaying any adjustments to the plans. Bloomington’s review only took a couple of weeks, Doyle said.
On-site inspections form the city have also been quick, he said.
“Municipalities can gum things up if they’re slow on some of that stuff, but with Bloomington that has not been the case,” Doyle said.
The groundbreaking ceremony was originally scheduled for August, but intense rain delayed the event. Doyle said the construction trailer was blown over during an Aug. 13 storm that left damage across Bloomington. Building materials were also blown away, but Doyle said that did not cause significant delays and no one was hurt.
