One of the worst kept secrets in the land rush swiftly unfolding near Purdue University is that a third development with 10 or more stories would land soon along State Street in West Lafayette’s Village area.
While still a month or two away from the formal approval process, details are starting to emerge about a project dubbed Hub Plus.
This one would top out at 15 stories at State and Salisbury streets, just down the State Street hill from where the 16-story Rise at Chauncey retail/student housing development will stand, according to preliminary plans filed with the Tippecanoe County Area Plan Commission.
The proposed Hub Plus comes from Core Spaces and Up Campus Properties, a Chicago-based development team behind The Hub, a 10-story apartment complex geared for students in the works at Pierce and Wood streets.
The partners also have ties to two other Purdue-oriented projects: Fuse, a five-story mix of ground-floor retail and upper-story apartments across Northwestern Avenue from Mackey Arena; and Chauncey Square, a six-story retail/apartment complex at Chauncey Avenue and South Street in the Village area.
The Hub was the first in West Lafayette’s budding high-rise trend spurred by the city and Purdue’s $120 million investment to improve State Street as a gateway into West Lafayette and campus.
“When we set out on the first one, we did not have the second one in mind,” said Steve Bus, of Up Campus Properties. “It came up when we were working on the first one. It’s great to have an address like State Street for a second, follow-on project.”
Negotiations over designs for Hub Plus were four months in the works before developers submitted a planned development rezoning petition at the end of April, according to Ryan O’Gara, APC assistant director. The city’s planners have considerable say over what they’ll consider on planned developments that are taller than West Lafayette’s 35-foot limit on new construction.