LAPORTE — A major need for new housing in LaPorte is again being addressed at a nearly shovel-ready, once heavily wooded site.
Currently, more than two miles of water and sewer lines combined are being extended to the 35-acre site annexed into the city last year at Park Street and Severs Road.
The $12 million project's plans call for 10 single-family homes, nearly 100 townhomes and more than 50 apartments at the development called Hunter Woods.
LaPorte Economic Advancement Partnership Executive Director Bert Cook said it’s one of the largest housing developments in the city’s recent history, but just scratches the surface on the work still needed to meet demand for modern housing options in the community.
“This is a great project. We want to see more like this, but we've still got a long ways to go,” he said.
Cook said the first new homes could start going up late this year, but more likely in the spring.
It’s expected it will take five to 10 years for all of the homes to be constructed, but how fast they go up depends on how briskly they sell, Cook said.
The homes are expected to have a price range between $340,000 and $405,000. Monthly rent for the two- and three-bedroom apartments should be anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000.
During a Wednesday groundbreaking ceremony, officials said local government agencies working together was key to making the development possible.
The city is paying the brunt of the nearly $2 million cost of running municipal utilities to the site, but county government is chipping in close to $500,000.
LaPorte County Council President Randy Novak said the need for new housing is great throughout the county, so helping the city is also good for the county.
He called the partnership “a no-brainer.”
LaPorte Mayor Tom Dermody, who’s been aggressive in his pursuit of new residential construction since taking office in 2020, said the cost of not offering more housing options to prospective and current residents is much greater in the long run.
The goal is to attract more new residents by adding homes with greater market appeal. The vision is also to draw from people that will be filling the many jobs at an Amazon data center and electric battery making plant going up outside New Carlisle, and at the Microsoft data center planned in LaPorte.
A study in 2022 recommended over 900 homes for ownership and more than 750 rental units be added in the city to achieve balance in a housing stock, with just 20% having been constructed since 1980.
Since 2020, the new housing includes 200 resort-type apartments near Clear Lake and several townhomes priced at more than $700,000 apiece beside Fish Trap Lake.
Roughly 40 affordable units inside the once-condemned Monroe Street Apartments downtown have been restored and modernized.
Low to mid-priced homes are also going up at the former Tibma Bakery site on Woodward Street and on 18th Street across from Kesling Middle School.
More new housing continues to be added to the existing Whispering Meadows subdivision along Indiana 4 on the city’s southeast side.
Future construction of new homes is also planned beside Beechwood Golf Course.
“We have a lot of catching up to do, to say the least,” Dermody said.
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