Opening day nears for downtown's Macy Apartments
Sep. 23—Downtown's newest apartment development is close to opening.
Construction on the Macy Apartments, located at 200 N. Union St., the site of the former YMCA, is nearing completion, Ryan Pitcher, of Fortune Companies Inc., the developer of the project said earlier this week.
Leasing has already begun on the apartment complex's 50-ish units, and Pitcher said he's hoping to have residents move in beginning the first of October.
The majority of the complex's apartment units are finished. The apartment complex is mostly studio and 2-bedroom, one bath apartments — Pitcher said those two layouts have been the most in-demand downtown — with a smattering of one-bedroom apartments.
Here and there in the apartment complex are what could be called premium apartments. For example, one two-bedroom unit includes a lofted living room space, while another is larger than most others and benefits from the former YMCA's rotunda windows.
The apartments are market-rate and rents will be "similar" to other Fortune Companies apartments downtown, such as Tudor, College and Superior apartments, Pitcher said. Monthly rents for two-bedroom units at those apartment complexes are in the high $900s, and $700s for the studios. The aforementioned premium apartments will be priced a little higher than the rest.
Fortune Companies took over the project in late 2019, receiving development plan approval in late 2020.
Construction included completely gutting the main building of the former YMCA, erecting a completely new, two-story residential building on East Walnut Street, turning the former YMCA's original gymnasium into apartments, creating a courtyard space in between all three buildings and nearly 30 parking spaces on the property's far east side.
The two blighted structures at the former YMCA, specifically the second gymnasium, constructed in 1957, and the swimming pool, built in 1965, were both demolished by the city in 2018.
As of earlier this week, all that remains under construction are the front spaces on the first floor of the former YMCA building, which were originally going to be commercial spaces, but due to lower demand for office space downtown and higher demand for residential space, will now also be apartments.
"Now is the best time to be investing in downtown, but it's not in commercial real estate," Scott Pitcher, owner of Fortune Companies, said. "It's in multi-family."
Like the majority of the downtown projects Fortune Companies is involved in, reuse of historical aspects of buildings is prevalent.
The facade of the front of the main building of the former YMCA is kept intact. The new building erected on East Walnut Street is modern on the inside but historical in nature on the outside and features salvaged columns and more from an old Indiana church that was torn down.
While the building's original gymnasium was gutted, parts of its original floor were kept, sanded, restained and reused in some of the first-floor apartment units. Even the new name is a callback to its previous use. Macy is just the letters of YMCA rearranged.
"We try to keep what flavor we can because it's a cool historic building, and it needed saved," Ryan Pitcher said. "We try to keep the integrity of the building when we're restoring these historic buildings."
Those interested in leasing a unit at Macy Apartments can call DJ Butcher, of Fortune Companies, at 765-860-2591.
Tyler Juranovich can be reached at 765-454-8577, by email at tyler.juranovich@kokomotribune.com or on Twitter at @tylerjuranovich.
