20 years of planning, redevelopment spark connections at Notre Dame’s Eddy Street
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More than 20 years ago, University of Notre Dame officials began laying the groundwork for a transformational project that promised to extend the reach of the university’s campus into a blighted neighborhood just across Angela Boulevard.
The resulting $315 million project, developed across three mayoral administrations and two university presidencies, recently wrapped up its third and final phase – a commercial center and townhomes that, to the delight of many, brought South Bend its first Trader Joe’s grocery store.
The 750,000-square-foot development, Eddy Street Commons, has brought two hotels, 90,000 square feet of retail space and more than 900 apartments and townhomes to a campus that otherwise lacked a walkable business district.
Popular chains like Chipotle, Five Guys, Urban Outfitters and Brothers Bar & Grill line street level-retail space and appeal to the university crowd. The development also features a few local establishments such as a Hammes Notre Dame Bookstore location; Purely Pressed, a local coffee and juice bar; and the Irish pub O’Rourke’s Public House.
Tim Sexton, Notre Dame’s associate vice president for public affairs, said university officials hoped with the project to create a new, more welcoming entrance to campus where one before didn’t exist.
“We wanted to purposely say, ‘Come to campus, walk back and forth,” Sexton said. “We want to have connectivity with the local community, not only for our faculty, staff and students but for the community itself to come and enjoy amenities on the campus.”
And, the project that flipped a once-dilapidated neighborhood on its head is now spurring new development the likes of which many longtime residents could have never envisioned in an area that once was better known for its high crime rates and vacant homes.
Now, the Northeast Neighborhood has become one of South Bend’s most desirable zip codes with new single family homes, apartments and condos popping up rapidly along the Eddy Street corridor.
City leaders, university officials and developers have all called the project a success, applauding the public-private partnership for the growth of housing opportunities, retail, a tax base and relationships through long-term investment.
“What this project amounts to is the university being willing to make significant investment in South Bend,” said Caleb Bauer, the city’s executive director of community investment. “For them to come off-campus into the city limits was a huge step for them at that time and I think the university deserves a lot of credit for their partnership in making this possible.”
Caleb Bauer speaks on collaborative efforts and the tax impact of Eddy Street Commons.
Some long-time residents, though pleased with the revitalization of their neighborhood, say they’re worried about what comes next as new developers make note of the increasingly more popular area.
“How many apartments and condominiums do we need?” asked Lu Ella Webster, a Northeast Neighborhood resident and program coordinator at the Robinson Community Learning Center. “Really? How many do we need? The neighborhood has gone from home ownership to apartments, condominiums. There’s gotta be a stopping point at some point.”
Building relationships
When Notre Dame officials first entered the Northeast Neighborhood in the early 2000s, residents weren’t sure what was happening. One resident during an early neighborhood meeting shared her observation that she would often go to work and see a house standing and when she came back, it would be gone.
Out of that initial confusion grew more conversation, Webster said. The university began building deeper relationships through the Northeast Neighborhood Revitalization Organization and worked alongside residents to create a new community center named for longtime neighborhood advocate Renelda Robinson.
When the university revealed its broader plans to build a multimillion-dollar mixed-use development where Webster’s home of 23 years stood, the lifelong Northeast Neighborhood resident said she was skeptical, but worked out a deal with the NNRO to buy back her childhood home for $2,500, build a new house on the property and stay in the neighborhood. Not all of her neighbors stayed, Webster said, and she’s counseled some over the years to negotiate for the best price they can get on their increasingly more valuable homes. But, ultimately, she says, she sees the development as a success both in revitalizing the neighborhood and in growing relationships in the community.
“It all has really, honestly been for the betterment of the neighborhood. I say that from the heart, being a doubter,” Webster said. “Eddy Street Commons has impacted this neighborhood really good.”
Lu Ella Webster talks about her changing perceptions of Eddy Street and the University of Notre Dame.
Kite Realty Group President Thomas McGowan told Inside INdiana Business that’s why he believes his company was picked from among 50 others vying to develop the property.
“When we came in, we understood that we absolutely had to work hand-in-hand with the community, not just the University of Notre Dame, but the Northeast Neighborhood Association,” McGowan said.
The Kite president said his team attended many neighborhood meetings and worked closely with city officials in their initial zoning requests. The team built a 1,276-space parking garage into the first phase of the development to ensure traffic from its multiple hotels, apartments and shops wouldn’t overtax existing street parking in the surrounding neighborhoods.
And, in a subsequent phase, Kite rebuilt the Robinson Community Learning Center, which now features community rooms, a commercial grade kitchen, a black box theater and more to support student tutoring, Lego robotics, youth Shakespeare and other adult programming. Though open to all, the center, which is owned by Notre Dame, prioritizes families in the 46617 zip code. Its members banded together in 2018 to raise funds for a new park in the neighborhood, another organic offshoot of the relationships formed during Eddy Street planning. The park is used today by both kids in the neighborhood and Notre Dame students, Webster said.
“It did build a better relationship with the neighborhood,” Webster said. “Students are more friendlier. They talk to you now and they get to know you.”
Weathering uncertain times
But, the development, like so many others of its time, was nearly tripped up before it got started. Developers broke ground on the project in June 2008 — just months before the start of the housing crisis.
The city contributed $35 million to the project in tax increment financing, which helped with early steps like street and sewer repairs as well as covered the cost of the first-phase parking garage.
The developers also worked with three Notre Dame advisors with real estate experience who engineered a 75-year ground-lease structure in which Notre Dame owns and leases the land Eddy Street Commons was to be built on, allowing Kite to defer payments as needed.
One major piece of the project’s first phase – a second hotel site – was delayed into the second phase, opening in 2018. Together, the development’s Fairfield Inn and Embassy Suites have added nearly 300 rooms to the area.
Even before the recession struck, Kite developers had intentionally arranged for what McGowan calls a “reasonable” amount of square-footage to be built out in each phase.
“Everything we did, we did with a measurement that had an eye toward conservatism,” McGowan said. “I think that paid off and allowed us to be successful.”
Today, the development has a single outlot available for lease west of Trader Joe’s. Its office space is 100% leased and two additional retail spaces are available along the Eddy Street corridor, though McGowan said the developer has answers for those locations.
The development, according to Notre Dame’s estimates, attracts 2.5 million visitors a year.
Development continues
And now that success is spilling into other areas.
A trail project is planned to connect Eddy Street and the Northeast Neighborhood to downtown and at least five new multi-family developments have popped up within the last couple of years along the Eddy Street/State Road 23 corridor, bringing hundreds of new housing units to the area. Some apartment-style homes are geared toward Notre Dame students, graduate students and faculty, while other, pricey condominiums target alumni looking for a place to stay during home football weekends.
While pleased overall with the shift in her neighborhood, Webster fears new developers entering the picture and unaffiliated with Notre Dame may not have long-time residents’ best interests in mind. She says she would like to see more local businesses represented through new retail and restaurant openings and expressed concern over a string of recent fights this fall among young people, one with a gun notably fired into the air striking a car and another resulting in five arrests.
McGowan says Kite has a strong relationship with South Bend police, including its chief and commanders. He said the company, which today manages the commercial properties at Eddy Street Commons, contracts a South Bend police employee and requests additional support on busy weekends.
“We take it very seriously,” McGowan said. “We want everyone to enjoy it. We want it to be the safest part of the city without question, so we spend quite a bit of effort making sure everybody stays safe.”
And while Notre Dame officials say they have no plans to grow their undergraduate enrollment as more apartments become available in the area, additional development following Eddy Street’s completion was anticipated early on and contributes to local tax collection, which can be reinvested in the neighborhood.
Sexton, the university’s associate vice president for public affairs, said 600 new residents reportedly moved to the Northeast Neighborhood according to the most recent census, contributing in property tax, and one home football weekend alone contributes more than $25 million to the regional economy.
The NNRO is also working with South Bend Heritage to explore on a smaller scale ways to avoid pricing out low income families.
NNRO President Jessica McCrea said the organization recently helped sell the first home in a first-of-its-kind community land trust program where land purchased by a not-for-profit is developed and offered to a low-income family at a discounted rate with the promise they will sell the home at a similar rate to another low-income family should they choose to move.
“That affordability stays with the land throughout every single owner in perpetuity,” McCrea said. “One of the biggest messages we hear from our residents here…is that we do need more affordable housing.”
Notre Dame officials acknowledge the university’s long-standing reputation locally and say they hope through their partnership with NNRO and the city they can continue to pursue more collaborative efforts in the future.
“We went through a period where even from a community perspective, Notre Dame was viewed as a gated-off area that was not welcoming for those other than faculty, staff and students and we really wanted to dispel that mindset,” Sexton said. “I think Eddy Street Commons was the perfect vehicle for us to do that.”