SOUTH BEND — Devereaux Peters remembers, in her first two years at the University of Notre Dame, frequently making the 6-mile trip from campus to Washington High School to watch her future teammate Skylar Diggins play.
Heading west over the St. Joseph River changed Peters' perception of South Bend. It was the late 2000s, and so many areas looked sorely in need of revitalization. Peters became aware of what she called the Notre Dame "bubble": "This bubble of wealth and the elites, and then you have this whole city outside that doesn't necessarily tap into that."
Peters, a standout forward at Notre Dame from 2007 to 2012 who went on to play professionally for years, is keeping this divide in mind as she plans to build 60 new apartments tailored to low-income tenants in downtown South Bend.
A vacant lot at the intersection of Michigan and Monroe Streets, known colloquially as the "Fat Daddy's block" in honor of the closed surplus store, is Peters' chosen site to invest more than $14 million to build a four-story, 65,000-square-foot apartment complex. Of the 60 units, 46 would be priced affordably to serve a spectrum of lower-income residents.
The project could stall, however, if the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority rejects Peters' application for rental housing tax credits. Failure to be chosen for the highly competitive annual program, which reduces a developer's tax burden, has derailed multiple affordable-housing projects over the past five years, including a Wisconsin-based firm's plans to build senior housing in the old Fat Daddy's buildings.