By Edwin Bierschenk
Original article here.
A second high-end office building may be coming to the city’s Oxbow Landing development.
The Hammond Redevelopment Commission on Tuesday is expected to enter into an option agreement with ATG Real Estate Development LLC for the last parcel of land the commission has available at the development.
ATG is well along on construction of its first 37,200-square-foot office building on a 3.5-acre site at the development.
“We think they did a great job,” Phil Taillon, executive director of the city’s planning and development department, said Monday of the company’s building at 2929 Carlson Drive.
Kathryn L. Harris, ATG’s vice president of development, said the current building will open later this year. She said signed leases have been secured for a third of the building and the company is in final negotiations for another third of the space available.
The three-story structure is the city’s first Class A professional office building, said Taillon, and the new one will be the second. Class A space is considered to be of high quality with state-of-the-art amenities and premier tenants.
“We are anxious to bring another first-class development to Oxbow Landing and we want to help fulfill the city’s redevelopment plan,” Harris said.
Taillon said the lower level of the new building is expected to have a restaurant, which will be of a different type than the Buffalo Wild Wings and Byway Brewery restaurant that is located in the same complex.
The earlier project by the company was the beneficiary of a $1.6 million incentive package provided through the sale of economic development bonds.
The second project will not receive such incentives, but Taillon said the commission is selling the 4.4-acre site at a discount because additional soil compaction will have to be done at the site. The average price of the land at the site is about $148,000 per acre, he said, but under the option agreement ATG would pay $125,000 per acre.
Groundbreaking for a Holiday Inn Express & Suites also is scheduled to take place Wednesday at Oxbow Landing. The 113-room hotel is expected to employ about 20 to 25 people when completed.