Optimism for future of Elkhart’s Benham Avenue
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City leaders, community stakeholders and representatives of the Housing and Community Regeneration Initiative (HCRI) at the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture gathered Thursday night at the Tolson Center for Community Excellence in Elkhart to discuss the key findings and recommendations for the city’s Benham Neighborhood.
HCRI Director Marianne Cusato’s presentation centered on themes of regeneration, restoration and reconnection of the currently fragmented neighborhood.
Holistically, the plan involves revising current zoning ordinances to legalize building on smaller lots, preventing the displacement of low-income renters and fixed-income homeowners, attracting new residents and businesses, street redesign to foster connectivity, preserving cultural heritage, fostering pride of place, increasing economic opportunities and reducing crime.
Sheneen Haley, who has worked as a correctional officer in the area for over 30 years, is a third-generation resident in her 130-year old home. She inherited the property after her grandmother passed in 2008.
“I’m excited. I was at all three of the Thrive meetings last year to find out what’s getting ready to happen in my neighborhood because I’m a homeowner there; I don’t plan on leaving. I need to know what’s going on,” Haley said. “How is this going to affect me as a homeowner? Do I have to give up my house because I can’t do that? I’m the last woman standing. So that’s why I’m here tonight.”
Haley, who also grew up in the neighborhood, recounted stories of growing up around nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts and uncles, even recalling being babysat by Mayor Rod Roberson’s grandmother.
“Those houses were horse stables, and they turned them into homes. That means a lot,” Haley said. “I’ve seen the neighborhood change, people come and go, but we’ve got a core group on our block. I know everybody and we watch out for everybody.”
Nekeisha Alayna Alexis moved to the area from New York City. She became a homeowner last year after living downtown for 10 years. She moved into a home formerly owned by Haley’s aunt.
“I grew up in Spanish Harlem, Tito Puente Way, and I have a sense of what happens when a whole neighborhood changes,” Alexis said. “So for me, I’m so glad that this is happening because of the way that it is happening. I’ve seen what happens when people don’t pay attention to the folks who have lived in a neighborhood a long time, when people don’t pay attention to history. Gentrification is immediate.”
Despite being relatively new to the area, Alexis has hunkered down with the neighborhood and was one of the people who championed the redevelopment of the Tolson Center. She’s also co-producer of the 2023 documentary “What Happened at Benham West: African American Stories of Community, Displacement and Hopes in the City of Elkhart.”
“I think this is the right team of people who care on an emotional and not only an economic level for what happens here, who understand the injustice of what was done here before and they are not seeking to repeat it to the best of their abilities,” Alexis said. “I’m excited, not just because new things are coming but because of the intentionality and the care with which people are trying to do what should have been done here years ago.”
One of the recommendations involves creating a temporary park at the abandoned Roundhouse site. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) already sent an on-scene coordinator to examine the soil. Currently, elevated levels of lead, arsenic and asbestos-containing materials have been found in the soil. The city is awaiting an EPA Superfund allocation to begin the remediation process.
Angelia Washington, executive director of the Elkhart Housing Authority expressed gratitude to the planning team for including public housing in the redevelopment conversation. The 194-unit Washington Garden apartment complex property currently houses about 600 residents.
“The public housing community has been marginalized; it hasn’t been considered as one of the most important communities for discussion,” Washington said. “We would like to redevelop the property, make it less isolated and reconnect it to the streets. We just need funding for redevelopment.”
Neighborhood Evolution, a group of small-scale real estate developers, including Mike Keen, have been contracted by the city to work on the Benham Neighborhood project and the redevelopment of the Woodland Crossing Mall.
Keen and his partners, who have developed properties across South Bend, Texas and Minnesota, aim to inspire neighbors to become developers themselves.
“We want people to build wealth in their own neighborhoods by creating their own businesses, doing their own renovations and building their own houses. The idea is to create the capacity within the neighborhood,” Keen said. “Obviously, we’re going to want to bring a company like Garrison Frazier for the bigger projects but we also want the neighbors to be the ones who are also filling that lot next to them, renovating that house across them. Just like our forefathers and foremothers built these neighborhoods, we want to be the ones to rebuild it.”
An accidental developer, Keen left his job as a professor at Indiana University South Bend after 30 years with plans to become a sustainability consultant. However, the need for blight elimination led him into small-scale development.
“Every homeowner is a small-scale developer because you’ve got to figure out your budget and maintain your house,” Keen added. “Quite frankly, if you’re renting a place, you’re also a small-scale developer, because you’ve got to figure out how to take care of it, how to pay the bills and how to maintain your budget.”
Indianapolis-based Garrison Frazier Developments is partnering with the city for two new projects in the Benham Neighborhood. Love Plaza on South Main Street will include 106 housing units as well as retail space on the ground floor.
“We’re here to execute on the report that you all participated in,” Garrison Frazier Managing Partner Steve Scott told attendees. “I talked about community assets; everybody in this room is a community asset, and so I want to make sure that we utilize you as community assets.”
The second project on Freight Street will involve design around the National New York Central Railroad Museum and restoring the sole-surviving Kelby Love mural. It would also include140 housing units along with retail space and open spaces.
“The Freight Street project goes to the Redevelopment Commission next week. Once that happens, we’ll start to have some real in-earnest conversations for a redevelopment agreement with the city,” Scott said. “As soon as we can get those specifics nailed down, we’ll have a better idea what the timeline is. But we hope to be doing some real substantive work on both projects next year.”
Once work begins on the Benham plan, Roberson and his team would be looking at neighborhoods in the west and near north as possible locations for the city’s next redevelopment efforts.
“It provides the seed for transitional and catalyst growth for our entire city. This is a wonderful opportunity for the city as a whole, and that’s why I’m excited,” Roberson said. “We believe that you seed it and then private investment helps to continue to grow it and with residents that have a strong connection to the community, it literally helps the investment and guides it into the appropriate spaces.”
Vision keeping, action planning, coalescing the different individual initiatives, form based zoning and community-focused building design are all key to the successful execution of the proposed redevelopment efforts, officials said.
“I’m so proud of my mayor that I voted for and what he has done since he’s been in office,” Haley said. “I don’t want him to leave, so we can get more done in this city.”
You can view the HCRI’s complete Benham Neighborhood Plan, titled Restoration, Regeneration & Reconnection of the Benham Neighborhood—on the Greater Elkhart Chamber of Commerce’s website.