“We are a go,” said Tonya Burns of the Fred Burns Development Team, who is developing the apartment community. “We’ve already closed on the land and we’re moving right along.”
Burns said she’s been very pleased with the “great rapport we’ve had with the Planning Commission and City Council.”
“We plan to break ground in April,” she said.
She said the company is already preparing for excavation bids to go out in the next few weeks.
Burns said the first apartments could be ready for occupancy in late 2015. In the past, she has declined to give a specific price point for the units, but did say they would be market rate.
Nicholas Place sits on 22.4 acres and will have nine buildings with 24 units, each of two- and three-bedroom apartments. The average unit will have about 1,145 square feet of floor space and 95 percent will have brick exteriors.
The community would include amenities such as a pool, clubhouse/fitness room, playground, garage spaces, community garden, a dog park and basketball court. Of the 216 planned units, plans call for 144 two-bedroom units and 72 three-bedroom units. The community is located west of South Towne Boulevard between Lefferson Road and Arbor Court and is in the Lebanon City School District.
The family-owned company has developed a number of properties of this size and just completed a similar-sized luxury apartment community in LaGrange, Ky., just outside of Louisville. The Middletown project will be the company’s first venture into Ohio. The company currently owns in excess of 1,200 units in seven properties in Kentucky, including four apartment properties in Northern Kentucky communities of Florence, Independence and Burlington.
City officials said the property is in the East End Tax Increment Financing district and the new property valuation and resulting taxes would contribute to the retirement of the debt for the construction of South Towne Boulevard. At its meeting last week, the Planning Commission reduced the park impact fee from $97,200 or $450 per unit to $75,600 or $350 per unit because of the various recreational amenities planned for the apartment community.
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