By KEVIN NEVERS

Call it GK Jr.

Not quite a year after the Chesterton Town Council split-voted 3-2 to reject the petition of GK Development of Barrington, Ill., to build a 351,419-square foot strip mall on 40 acres located immediately south of C.R. 1100N, east of Ind. 49, and north of Rail Road, a brand-new developer is proposing essentially the same project on exactly the same property, owned by John Ameling.

On Feb. 26 the Clerk-Treasurer’s Office took receipt of a concept plan and petition for a planned unit development submitted by Ameling and Ameling Properties LLC, which are under contract to sell the acreage to I80 LLC of Crown Point, whose principal is Bob Rossman.

Drawings included in the submission put the size of the strip mall at 333,795 square feet, only slightly smaller than the strip mall proposed by GK.

Details:

•An anchor building of 126,000 square feet located at the rear of the property, flanked by a junior anchor building to the north of 44,000 square feet and a second junior anchor building to the south of 76,000 square feet. By contrast, GK originally proposed a line of five anchors and junior anchors: a 174,700-square foot building at the north end, an 88,777-square foot building at the south end, and three others—of 21,360, 25,625, and 5,000 square feet—between the two.

•Three “shops”—of 19,500, 14,275, and 16,660 square feet—running parallel to Ind. 49 at the front of the property.

•Four other buildings—of 15,600, 4,800, 6,400, and 10,560 square feet—at the north edge of the property. Presumably the 15,600-square foot building, located at the extreme southeast corner of Ind. 49 and C.R. 1100N, would be the new home of CVS Pharmacy, which has made public its plans to build a $2 million store on 2.43 acres at the present location of Nielsen Nissan.

•The main entry into the strip mall would be at the newly signalized intersection of C.R. 1100N and Pioneer Trail, with a right-in/right-out only further east on C.R. 1100N. A secondary entry into the strip mall would be on Rail Road and aligned with Kelle Drive.

•The concept calls for a total of 1,503 parking spaces, significantly fewer than the 1,657 originally proposed by GK but still 13 percent more than required by the Zoning Ordinance, which—for a shopping center—mandates one space per 250 square feet of gross floor area: 333,795 square feet divided by 250 would indicate the need for only 1,335 spaces.

•Parking would be located chiefly in the center of the strip mall, west of the three anchor buildings and east of the three shops, but also at the extreme west edge along Ind. 49.

•A detention basin would be installed at the southeast corner of the property, immediately east of the Rail Road entry. The drawings show walking paths along Rail Road and the extreme east edge of the property, with an “observation pier” overlooking the detention basin.

•None of the petition materials cite possible businesses or tenants, but the petitioner will seek a special exception for an indoor theater in addition to all B-3 uses.

•The petitioner may seek variances in the PUD for the elimination of sidewalk along C.R. 1100N as well as for unspecified parking lot landscaping requirements.

A Bit of History

On paper, at least, the I80 strip mall does not appear to differ a great deal from the GK strip mall. So what’s changed in the last year to persuade I80 LLC and Rossman of the possibility of securing approval from the Town Council?

For one thing, the swing vote which killed the GK strip mall is no longer on the Town Council: that of Paul Christofersen, who resigned his 2nd District seat in August 2006. Frank Sessa was elected by Democrat caucus in September to replace him, and Sessa is on the record as having been in favor of the GK plan.

Ironically, Christofersen himself was elected by caucus to the 2nd District seat after Sessa resigned it in January 2005, and had Sessa remained in office, it’s possible, even likely, that the Town Council would have split-voted 3-2 the other way, with Sessa, Dave Cincoski, R-3rd, and Sharon Darnell, D-4th, voting in favor of the PUD ordinance and Jim Ton, R-1st, and Mike Bannon, R-5th, voting against it.

One other thing has changed in the last year as well: the Town Council’s endorsement of the permanent closure of the intersection of South Calumet Road and C.R. 1100N, as part of a proposed package of improvements in the South Calumet Triangle. One of the stated concerns at the time of at least one Town Council member, Ton, was the deleterious impact which a GK strip mall would have on traffic patterns on the west side of Ind. 49 in the Triangle.

Both the Town Council and the Redevelopment Commission believe that the closure of the intersection would make the Triangle safer. Whether, so far as Ton and others are concerned, it would make the Triangle safe enough, given the additional volume of traffic which an I80 strip mall would generate, remains to be seen.

The strip mall is not the only project contemplated by Rossman in Chesterton. In July 2006 he entered into a pre-annexation agreement with the Town Council for approximately 45 acres located immediately south of the Indiana Toll Road and east of Ind. 49 in unincorporated Liberty Township. Thirty-two of those acres, adjacent to Ind. 49, Rossman is proposing to devote to commercial/retail of an unknown type; the remaining 12 or so acres, further east, to residential, also of an unknown type.

Next

The Advisory Plan Commission is scheduled to review the I80 concept at its next meeting, at 6:30 p.m. March 15.

Posted 3/6/2007