Demolition work at the site of the former Jasper Cabinet building kicked off this morning with a ceremony put together by Jasper City officials.
The 30 million dollar mixed use development in Downtown Jasper to be known as River Centre is a project more than a decade in the making.
The upcoming demolition will lay the ground work to the first steps in redeveloping the downtown river front property into 36,000 square feet of retail and office space with parking, along with 75 market-rate apartments and an 80 room hotel through a partnership with Indianapolis based general hotels corporation.
In attendance was Jane Hendrickson with Boxer Girl real estate development an Indianapolis based company heading the River Centre Project.
Hendrickson shares how she became invovled with the project and what plans are in place for re-incorporating parts of the exsisting building…
Hendrickson has over 20 years of experience in single and multiple family home developments and is the principle of Boxer Girl, LLC., a development firm that serves smaller communites in Indiana.
The River Center project is the result of a development agreement with Boxer Girl, to use 13 million dollars in economic revenue bonds for six public use projects with the extension of Second Street, patoka steps next to the river on the north side, an extension of the Riverwalk on the north side, railroad improvements, cleaning out the Patoka River and building Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority approved parking lots on the flood mitigation area.
Andy Seger is the president of the Jasper Redevelopment commission. He illustrated how private and public investments were paired to bring this project to furition…
Jasper mayor Terry Seitz says in addition to this significant private investment, the preparation of River Centre also involved local legislators, the office of the Governor and Lt. Governor, the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority, Indiana Economic Development Corporation, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Indiana Environmental Management, the United States Army Corps of Engineers and virtually every city department and board.
He says it’s truly a team effort for a capstone project and has been an incredible journey to this day…..
Seitz says in the weeks to come the area will be fenced off as the larger parts of the demolition are completed.
Next on the agenda for the city to decide on will be a river front district which is a state statute allowing the city to create liquor license for the area.
