A local real estate developer is looking to expand apartment options in Blackstone.Skylark LLC already owns three converted homes off 38th Avenue and Dodge Street.It’s planning to ask the city for tax increment financing to replace three houses and a building that houses a chiropractic office with a large apartment complex.Skylark said with UNMC’s expanding campus, Blackstone's growing popularity and expanded mass transit, it'd be crazy not to add more units to the area.The three homes are already 21 apartments, but the developer wants to grow the area between two city ORBT bus stops. "(The city) came up with this new zoning where they want higher density, more people having the ability to use mass transit and this is right smack dab in the middle of it,” said Josh Hannum, a partner at Skylark LLC.Skylark hopes to take down the homes and office building and put up a $22 million, 131-unit apartment building, with retail and office space.“We're not demoing the buildings we're deconstructing them to all the pieces in these buildings inside will go to Habitat for Humanity,” Hannum said.The Omaha planning board will hear the plan this week.It asks for $3.8 million in tax increment financing.Hannum said that'll help walkability in the area.“We're going to actually expand the roadway, have better parking, make everything her wider and safer for pedestrians," Hannum said. One resident who lives in the converted apartments says the homes should stay.“To me, this is historic Blackstone, we make a big deal of marketing this as a historic neighborhood, well, this is the historic stuff, it's the buildings,” said Peyton Wells, who lives in the converted apartments now.Hannum said Skylark bought the properties around two years ago with the intention of keeping them as is. He said a market study of the area suggested redevelopment of the property could be successful.Wells said apartment complexes are unoriginal and reduce affordable housing. "To hear that they're going to tear down our complex along with the two others to make another ugly, gentrified apartment complexes that you can find all over Aksarben and Dundee at this point, I mean it's extremely disappointing,” Wells said.Hannum said ten of the new apartments will be reserved for low-income tenants. He adds Skylark will own and operate them. “We're not from out of town. We all own property locally and/or businesses, all of us, and we all feel pretty attached to Omaha so we obviously would not do anything to hurt that landscape. We're not building it and leaving,” Hannum said.The planning board will have hearings on the plan as will the city council.Skylark said there will be expanded parkin and all current residents will be given options in the area to move into before the project starts.If approved, Skylark hopes to have apartments available to rent in 2024.