Kite Realty OKs Notre Dame Lease, Set to Begin Mixed-Use Project

Kite Realty Group Trust has arranged a long-term ground lease with the University of Notre Dame and acquired land to begin the first phase of a 24-acre mixed-use project near the college’s South Bend, Ind., campus. The first phase of the development–dubbed Eddy Steet Commons–is expected to cost about $70 million and will include 90,000…

Kite Realty Group Trust has arranged a long-term ground lease with the University of Notre Dame and acquired land to begin the first phase of a 24-acre mixed-use project near the college’s South Bend, Ind., campus. The first phase of the development–dubbed Eddy Steet Commons–is expected to cost about $70 million and will include 90,000 square feet of ground-level retail and restaurants on both sides of Eddy Street; 75,000 square feet of Class A office space on three floors above a building to be constructed at Eddy Street and Angela Boulevard; 266 rental apartments in buildings along Eddy Street and a 1,281-car parking garage. Kite, an Indianapolis-based REIT, will own the 165,000 square feet of retail and office space. The company has already pre-leased or received commitments for just over half of the space. A Kite spokesman told CPN today that one of the key anchors for the retail space is a Follett bookstore. Other tenants will likely include apparel shops, restaurants, banks and other service businesses. Site work has begun this week and one of the first structures to be built will be the parking garage, which was financed with a $35 million Tax Increment Financing bond issue from the city of South Bend. Construction is also set to being soon on the mixed-use buildings on Eddy Street. Kite also took title to land that will be used for the construction of two Marriott hotels it will develop in a joint venture with White Lodging Services of Merrillville, Ind. One is a full-service hotel with 255 rooms and suites; 4,000 square feet of meeting space; an 8,000-square-foot ballroom and condos on the upper floors. The second hotel will be a limited-service SpringHill Suites hotel with 139 rooms. The Kite spokesperson told CPN the company also has a joint venture with Buckingham Cos. of Indianapolis to develop the rental apartments. Highline Construction, also from Indianapolis, will be building the for-sale residential units that will come in a later phase as the market demands. Those residences will include 49 condos and 20 courtyard townhomes, among other options. First reported Feb. 2, 2007, by CPN, the mixed-use project is expected to total more than 500,000 square feet and will be located south of the university’s football stadium. The first commercial district to be constructed next to the University of Notre Dame campus, it is only one component of a larger redevelopment of the area proposed by Notre Dame, the city and other organizations, including St. Joseph Regional Medical Center. Future developments could include a technology park, more retail and single-family homes. Kite, which went public in 2004, is a REIT that owns and develops neighborhood and community shopping centers in selected high growth markets in the United States. Most of its centers are concentrated in Florida and Indiana, but it also owns retail centers in Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington. The Kite spokesperson told CPN today that Eddy Street Commons is not the first mixed-use project the company has done, but it has not developed office or hotel space since it went public.

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