The Elkhart City Council this week approved incentives for a new mixed-use redevelopment project on South Main Street. The project also will memorialize a mural from a building that’s been demolished to make way for the redevelopment.
The incentives include a $5.8 million loan funded from tax incremental financing districts, along with a pledge of future TIF money generated by the project toward repayment of a bond that will be funded by the developer.
The investments support a $51 million mixed-use development by Indianapolis-based Garrison Frazier and Milhaus. It will include 210 new housing units and commercial space at Main Street and Prairie Avenue, designed to extend downtown development momentum beyond the railroad tracks.
The developer also plans to create a park called Love Plaza, after Elkhart artist Kelby Love, who died in 2018. The plaza will include a sculpture memorializing Love’s mural that had covered the wall of a building that was demolished to make way for the project.
The mural depicted hands reaching down from the sky, directing two people to drop their guns, after some shootings had occurred nearby.
