Elkhart partners with Notre Dame to unveil Benham Neighborhood Plan
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A new beginning is on the horizon for Elkhart’s Benham Neighborhood. City officials, the Greater Elkhart Chamber of Commerce, and the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture will hold a public session to present the key recommendations and findings in the Benham Neighborhood Plan at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Tolson Center for Community Excellence.
Based on months of research and public meetings set in motion at last August’s charrette, residents can access a copy of the findings from the School of Architecture’s Housing & Community Regeneration Initiative—titled Restoration, Regeneration & Reconnection of the Benham Neighborhood—on the chamber website.
“A year ago we began the process of identifying future development opportunities that would strengthen the community and economic foundations of the Benham Neighborhood while protecting the integrity, culture and people that have given life to this area of Elkhart,” chamber President Levon Johnson said. “With community input and guidance, we will focus on supporting a heightened quality of life and place through new housing, rehabilitation and by reconnecting the Benham Neighborhood from Main Street to Oakland Avenue to restore a more walkable and undivided neighborhood.”
The plan initially included four different pieces but was quickly coalesced into one since the area was historically a single neighborhood, but was divided following the introduction of the Benham underpass in the 1950s. Per the plan, the eastern boundary is South Main Street. The western boundary is Oakland Avenue. The neighborhood is bordered by Indiana Avenue to the south and the train tracks to the north.
“It split the neighborhood in half. So it was about, how do we reconnect the neighborhood?” Johnson said. “We know the total investment estimate to get this whole thing done is probably about $250 million. That’s a long-range, probably 30-year plan, but we know it contains both residential, single-family, multi-family housing, commercial districts, etc. We’re still trying to figure out exact numbers.”
Modeled after the success of the city’s River District, officials have already begun infrastructure upgrades on Benham Avenue to lay the groundwork for future investment identified in the plan. Like the Aquatic Center in the River District, the $15 million Tolson Center is the area’s catalyst project and is expected to attract investments into the area.
“The city is doing a $14.5 million dollar infrastructure project on Benham Avenue to mitigate some flooding issues, provide all new water lines and water hookups to support new infill development and to connect Benham with Third Street,” Elkhart Director of Development Services Mike Huber said. “This is part of a connectivity initiative between the Benham Neighborhood Plan connected to the Downtown Master Plan that we recently created.”
The Downtown Master Plan calls for Second and Third Street, which are both one way streets to revert to being two way streets.
“Second and Third streets feed in and out of Benham right now, which means Benham Avenue is going to have to shrink. Right now, it’s four lanes of traffic with turn lanes, and the goal is to pull that in so it is two lanes of traffic with a turn lane,” Johnson said. “As we start to build a commercial district for people who want to stop and need to stop, to shop, to enjoy amenities; that slows the traffic down and it becomes a destination, as opposed to just some place I’m trying to get through to get somewhere else.”
Since 2017, when the redevelopment of the former Elkhart Youth and Community Center started, the city has invested in a new bridge, streetscapes, underground sewer and water, critical to supporting a new Martin’s Super Market, two new apartment complexes, the Elkhart Aquatic Center and a new development on the north side of Jackson Boulevard, all of which are in the River District.
“We’re also looking at another $10 to $12 million of new infrastructure, sewer and water line, storm water drainage and streetscape on South Main Street, between the railroad tracks and Prairie Avenue, which is a key gateway corridor identified in the Benham Neighborhood Plan as well,” Huber said. “That’s being done to support two significant new private investment projects by Garrison Frazier, a private development company that’ll bring 225 housing units and 20,000 square feet of live, work and commercial space to both ends of that corridor. Freight Street on the north right adjacent to the tracks and then the corner of Prairie and Main Street on the south end.”
The Benham Neighborhood plan includes strategies for economic development, community engagement and sustainable progress. The upcoming public session offers residents the opportunity to learn more about the housing development plans as well.
As part of the recommendations, the Elkhart Housing Authority is considering ways to reimagine the Washington Gardens apartment complex, which was built in 1966.
“We’re also looking at our zoning ordinance, specifically as it relates to residential. It had evolved to a place where it was really more geared towards new housing development, in more suburban style neighborhoods,” Huber said. “So we’re working to create flexibility within our residential zoning district to really not just allow for, but incentivize and promote new infill, whether it’s for sale or rental housing on a number of the vacant lots throughout that neighborhood.”
Developmental momentum in the River District has continued to grow in the last seven years with about seven new buildings already under construction or about to be. Huber said the city is in talks for at least another three more developments, although it could be another three to six years before the developments are available.
“We’re fortunate right now in the Benham neighborhood in that we do have two significant development projects with the same developer in the Main Street corridor on the books and ready to go. We can see those projects completed in the next three years,” Huber said. “Infill is going to take a little longer to realize, and we’re looking at a seven to 10-year window to see all of the vacant lots filled. But we think we can achieve somewhere between 20 to 40 units in the next three to five years on an infill housing basis.”
Unveiling the plan is only the beginning of the implementation, and the city is looking to enable residents to invest in their city by building out support mechanisms that foster participation.
“We know that some of the commercial pieces on South Main, those are going to take big time developers to get that done. There’s highly expensive, multimillion-dollar work that needs to happen,” Johnson said. “But we also want to create opportunities for people that are in the community to be incremental developers or small developers, whether that be in housing or commercial spaces.”
To execute the plan, Huber said the city is leveraging its capital outlay dollars and tax increment finance resources. The city is also applying for allocations from the region’s $45 million READI 2.0 allocation and a Lilly Endowment blight elimination grant that is being awarded as part of the Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative.
“We’re hopeful that we can make a compelling argument to bring those dollars to help us continue with these high-dollar infrastructure costs,” Huber said. “In addition, we also want to create public open spaces that will make this an attractive place for people to want to live and move into as well.”
With the anticipated increase in property values that would come once implementation starts, the city is working to find ways to curtail the displacement of the older folks in the Benham Neighborhood.
“We’re still in the beginning stages of trying to identify what those strategies are. We know they’re foundational to how we want to approach the neighborhood,” Huber said. “We’re going to dig into those a little bit more as we get into the first parts of the implementation. Those are core goals and core outcomes that we want to make sure we accomplish as part of the plan.”
Huber also expects the redevelopment of the Woodland Crossing Mall to have a direct positive impact on the residents of Benham Avenue once the Elkhart Neighborhood Opportunity Hub, powered by Goodwill and Heart City Health opens early next year.
Close to 37,000 people travel in and out of Elkhart County for work, some of which have expressed interest in living in the city if they could find affordable options. Johnson said to capture just 10% of that pool, the city would need to build housing that aligns with the salaries in Elkhart.
“We’ve got to build housing that meets the cost range of the jobs that we are offering people when they come to Elkhart. A large part of this is new housing, multi-use housing, multi-family, single-family housing, spread out across the entirety of this neighborhood,” Johnson said. “That’s really the key component because you can’t build the commercial area until you get that piece. You’ve got to have customer density to say that it’s worth setting up shop here.”
The Elkhart charrette focused on strategies for affordable housing and future economic development for the South Main, Tolson and Benham West neighborhoods. These meetings included public participation on challenges, opportunities, hopes and concerns for the area.
“The goal of our work together is to help to restore, regenerate, and reconnect the Benham neighborhood,” Marianne Cusato, director of the Housing and Community Regeneration Initiative at the Notre Dame School of Architecture, said in a statement. “The rich history of this community offers inspiration for a hopeful future where streets are safe to walk, housing is attainable to purchase, and residents share a pride of place.”
The Housing and Community Regeneration Initiative provides assistance to municipalities and nonprofit organizations to improve communities through economic development by reimagining the built environment. The work of the initiative targets immediate local impact as well as national and global influence through three interrelated activities: actionable projects, research and education.
“We are very excited to have reached this point in the process for the Benham Neighborhood Plan,” Elkhart Mayor Rod Roberson said in written remarks. “Residents and stakeholders are invested in the future of this neighborhood and they were integral to its creation. As a key piece of ASPIRE Elkhart, Benham’s Tomorrow is Starting Today. I grew up here, know this neighborhood well and look forward to how this neighborhood will serve the generations to come.”