80 new lofts plus commercial units coming to downtown Salina

After seeing success in redeveloping the mercantile building of the H.D. Lee into apartments, a Salina development company is ready to move forward, developing the rest of the Lee buildings on North Santa Fe Avenue.

Overland Property Group has a reach extending to Iowa, Texas, Colorado and Missouri, but, being Salina natives, partners Matt Gillam and Pat Beatty said the work they are doing in Salina, and the Lee properties in particular, hold a special place.

"We do this all over the country, with a lot bigger projects that we have going on," Gillam said. "But this kind of fills the personal side for us, and our whole team is really excited about this one."

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A bit of experience with the challenge

Since the properties were placed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Lee complex also gives Overland unique challenges that it doesn't always see at other developments.

"These are complicated (properties) being historic, and they'll probably have five layers of funding in order to make it work," Beatty said.

Fortunately for the developers, having worked through the process of developing the first Lee building, which has 53 apartment units, gives them a better understanding of what it will take moving forward onto the next buildings.

"We've got a lot of really skilled historic folks (working with us)," Gillam said.

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One example of that understanding is the potential added costs that they didn't account for, like the additional $300,000 to $400,000 it took to get hardwood floors that were required to keep the historic nature of the first building.

Still, being a new and different building, there are unknowns, especially with the third phase, which is a completely different kind of building.

"Since we've not done this concrete building before, (we don't know) what they'll allow us to do with the floors, do with the windows," Gillam said.

Plans are underway, and Overland is hoping to get started soon.

"We're hoping to be under construction first quarter of next year, if things go the way we hope they will," Gillam said.

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Commercial space in addition to housing units

Buildings 2 and 3 are expected to contain an additional 80 housing units, bringing the total to 133 for the entire Lee complex. Overland also plans to have around 8,000 square feet of commercial space to use for the second project, Lee hardware building, on the main level. This hardware building is a near twin of the first, Lee mercantile building.

"We're pursing multiple different opportunities right now," Gillam said of the possibilities for commercial uses of the space.

While Overland is willing to talk with anyone interested in leasing the space, Gillam said the company wants to make sure what ends up there makes sense for the community.

"We may say no to a lot of people because we want the right user that's going to add to (the downtown area)," Gillam said.

Overland understands that people in Salina are interested in what goes on with the commercial economy of downtown.

"I know a lot people ask about the apartments because we need housing in Salina more than anything else," Gillam said. "This is also a thing people are really interested by...because they can see the benefit of it."

In addition to making sure the commercial uses make sense to downtown, Overland also wants to make sure the uses are practical for the residential properties too.

"We don't want it to be disruptive to our tenants," Beatty said.

Overall, Overland is hoping to have construction begin on the three buildings south of the Lee Mercantile Lofts at the corner of Santa Fe Avenue and Elm Street, the Lee Hardware Lofts, Lee Storage Lofts and the Lee Denim Building next year. These will add 80 more total housing units in affordable, workforce and market rates, close to 2,000 square feet of leasing and community space and more than 14,000 square feet of commercial space available.

As for when to expect the new buildings to be open and ready for new residents and businesses, Gillam said they're looking at a timeframe of another year after work begins, but that timeline could change.

"Again, with the historical, sometimes things take a little longer," Gillam said.