A planned 16-story development near Purdue will use every foot allowed by the FAA. Upshot: They won’t go higher than Rise.
Dave Bangert|dbangert@jconline.com
Show Caption
What’s the limit on how tall the budding high-rise trend can go in West Lafayette’s new, near-campus downtown?
Developers of Rise at Chauncey, a proposed retail/residential project at the entrance of the West Lafayette Village, are about to push things right to the limit.
It’s just not the full reach of the 18 stories they initially touted at the corner of State Street and Chauncey Avenue, where University Lutheran Church sits now.
“(Mayor John Dennis) told us he was comfortable on the height,” said Dan Hrankowsky, a partner with CA Ventures, one of two Chicago-based firms looking to build the $70 million project. “But every comment was always put forth with a caveat: Hey, guys, but we need an official blessing from the (Federal Aviation Administration).”
On Jan. 27, the FAA delivered not so much a blessing as a ruling on the flight pattern of Purdue Airport runways less than two miles away. According to an FAA letter filed with the Tippecanoe County Area Plan Commission, the cap for any building between the airport and the western edges of downtown Lafayette is 755 feet above sea level – or 149 feet above the runway’s 606-foot elevation.
So, doing the Rise at Chauncey math …
That leaves 168 feet, from an FAA-measured, 587-foot-elevation sidewalk to new roof. That maxes out the project at 16 stories – down from the 191-foot, 18-story development CA Ventures and R2 Companies originally pitched to city planners and the West Lafayette-Purdue Joint Board in November.
One thing seems clear. There might be taller buildings as developers look down State Street Hill or over the Wabash River into downtown Lafayette. But as for that close to campus, where State Street renovations are spurring a wave of new residential and retail projects?
“I would say, for the Chauncey Village area, Rise will be the tallest you can go,” said Ryan O’Gara, assistant director of the Area Plan Commission.
Rise at Chauncey faces a number of regulatory steps before developers are cleared on construction of a project that includes 300 units with 675 bedrooms, approximately 21,000 square feet of ground-level retail and a 142-space parking garage.
Zoning laws still limit West Lafayette projects to three stories, unless it has a planned development designation, subject to negotiations with city planners. Those negotiations are still happening, according to both sides. Rise at Chauncey is scheduled to go for an Area Plan Commission recommendation as soon as Feb. 15. The West Lafayette City Council would get the final say, as soon as its March 6 meeting.
The new design includes three buildings – one 13 stories, a second 15 stories and the third 16 stories – at the curve of Chauncey Avenue and State Street, just east of Chauncey Hill Mall and three blocks from campus. (University Church plans to move to 460 Northwestern Ave., across from campus in a building that houses The Exponent, a student newspaper.)
In essence, developers still plan for the tallest of the three buildings to be 18 stories. They’ll just need to bury the parking down two levels to get it done under the FAA restrictions.
“It’s not just us going in to press the limits someplace,” said Hrankowsky, whose group worked on two other five-story residential/retail projects near campus: The Fuse at 720 Northwestern Ave., across from Mackey Arena, and Chauncey Square on Chauncey Avenue in the Village.
“It is saying that this site absolutely fits us to a ‘T’ in terms of our business plan,” Hrankowsky said. “We like the best location in proximity to night life and community resources and campus convenience. And to us, this is probably the premier site you could ever envision in West Lafayette. When you combine that with the footprint with the potential height it could go to, the density that that yields within our comfort zone with the 675 beds, plus or minus, we feel the demand is going to be overwhelmingly there.”
But still, it’s going to be the tallest thing near campus, right?
“From what I understand,” Hrankowsky said, “that’s still going to be true.”
Erik Carlson, West Lafayette’s development director, said that with recent pressure to put up taller buildings near campus, the idea is to have some stair-stepping variety, even at those heights.
“The Rise’s design gives an appearance of multiple buildings on the same site, which was important to us as we did not want to see a monolithic structure in the heart of our uptown,” Carlson said.
Two blocks away, another Chicago-based development team is getting ready to break ground on The Hub, a 599-bedroom apartment complex aimed for 10 stories at Wood and Pierce streets. Final designs for that project will be up for APC consideration on Feb. 15 at the Tippecanoe County Office Building, 20 N. Third St. (For comparison sake, the Centier Building – formerly the Chase Building and the Bank One Building – is 10 stories. The Tippecanoe County Courthouse dome tops out at 226 feet.)
Carlson said there’s talk about other properties and other potential developers in the Village area. None, he said, have broached the subject of pushing to the FAA limit.
“Other potential sites in the Village have a larger footprint, and on those we would hope to work with the developers to see multiple buildings, or the appearance of multiple buildings on those sites of varying heights,” Carlson said.
Hrankowsky said if Rise at Chauncey plansget city approval, the plan is to build and be open in time for the fall 2019 semester at Purdue. The retailer lined up – what he describes as a “big box offering” designed for a near-campus setting – could be announced in the spring.
“When you put all that together, for us, it seems a perfect piece of the puzzle of the West Lafayette downtown,” Hrankowsky said.
The tallest piece, for sure.
Bangert is a columnist with the Journal & Courier. Contact him at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.
Related coverage:
Under high-rise pressure, West Side landmark businesses stand firm
A 10-story statement onWest Lafayette’s downtown
Could ‘The Hub Effect’ save New Chauncey?
