HAMMOND | Plans for new retail development and a multiscreen movie house on the city's far south side received preliminary approval Monday night, though with a number of conditions.
Plan Commission members rejected a recommendation by city planning staff to hold off on a decision on developer George Markopoulos' proposal for a mixed retail, dining and 12-screen cinema complex just south of the Borman Expressway, in order to keep the project moving.
Without the commissioners' support Monday, the development risked missing this fall's building season, said Nicholas Chulos, an attorney with Schererville law firm Krieg DeVault, which represents Markopoulos' Blue Light Holdings LLC.
Blue Light Holdings owns the 25-acre site in the 7800 block of Indianapolis Boulevard.
Monday's decision allows Markopoulos to appear before the Board of Zoning Appeals in August to seek the 19 zoning variances required for the project before returning to the Plan Commission for final approval in September.
The development plan calls for demolishing a long-vacant former Builders Square store at the site, renovating the 110,000-square-foot former Kmart into mixed retail space, and constructing at least three restaurants and a movie theater.
City planner Brian Poland cautioned that there are too many concerns and outstanding issues with the development plan for even preliminary approval, including the lack of state approval for the planned entrance from Indianapolis Boulevard.
"We support the project in concept, but there are questions we would like to see resolved," Poland said. One of those issues, he said, is the project's encroachment on property belonging to nearby Alverno Laboratories.
Because the Kmart side of the property is in a flood plain, state and city laws limit how much work can be done there, Poland said, and the planned new outbuildings along Indianapolis Boulevard can't be built at all until the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers finishes its levee along the Little Calumet River.
But Chulos asked commissioners for a chance to keep the project -- which he estimated would involve $20 million to $23 million in investment and create as many as 150 permanent full-time jobs -- moving along on schedule.
"There are not a lot of people standing in line to develop this property," Chulos said. "We have someone who's willing to sink a substantial amount of money into this project without asking for financial assistance from the city."
Commissioners said their final approval is contingent on the developer resolving every concern that city planning staff has raised.
Markopoulos, whose Praedium Development Corp. owns the former Woodmar Mall site just two miles north of the planned complex, claimed in 2006 he would have a new retail center open at the former mall by the 2007 Christmas season.
But one month later, Markopoulos bought the option for the Kmart property, then known as Interstate Plaza, and no new development was forthcoming at Woodmar after the old indoor mall was demolished.
