The Normal Town Council approved four actions at its meeting on Monday evening that will allow redevelopment of the Shelbourne apartments and development of the remainder of the property to move forward.
Mike Mapes, one of the developers of the site, told Cities 92.9, “The plan is just to do it as quickly as we can starting when we get our permits, so, hopefully tomorrow.”
At it’s meeting the council approved;
- An Ordinance Rezoning Property in the Town of Normal,
- A Resolution Approving a Preliminary Subdivision Plan.
- A Resolution Approving a Preliminary Planned Unit Development and
- A Resolution Approving a Planned Unit Development Final Development Plan.
Mapes told us what we can expect to see first saying, “The plan is to do a building a month. They are eight unit apartments (eight apartments per building). So we will do a building a month until we get through the 14 buildings. That’s going to take 18 months. There is a common building in there.”
Shelbourne Apartments Development Approved By Normal Planning Commission
The property had to be rezoned because previously it was zoned for institutional use since Illinois State University (ISU) owned the property.
The property had to be subdivided because the existing apartments and undeveloped property east of them had to be rezoned multi-family residential. Duplexes are planned to be built to the east of the existing apartments. North of the existing apartments single family homes are planned so that property had to be zoned single family residential.
A Planned Unit Development (PUD) had to be approved. This was required for the existing apartments and a future detention basin on the northwest corner of the property. Both preliminary and final PUD plans were approved.
The apartment complex includes 100 units. Half have one bedroom and the other half have 2 bedrooms. The new duplexes and single family homes would have access from two points on Beech St. 14 duplex lots and 15 single family lots are planned. Grading for the new duplexes and single family homes is expected to begin late next summer.
240 Housing Units Planned for Uptown South to Address Shortage
When asked about the market for apartments, T. J. Powelo, the other developer involved in this project, told us , ” I have apartments through central Illinois and right now … they are always full so there always seems to be a need. And I know people who drive in from Pekin to here, Lincoln to here. So people have been looking for months to get into an apartment here.”
We asked about the potential for having trouble finding people to do the work due to heavy demand and Mapes told us, “We have our own subcontractors and our own crews to do the work we need to. I have owned my own construction company for 20 years so I have my own workers also.” Maze owns Quality Construction in Peoria.
When asked to share any other thoughts he had Powelo told us, “We are super excited we got everything approved and looking forward to doing this development.”
