JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. (WDRB) -- Local developers are planning to build a residential apartment complex on Riverside Drive along Jeffersonville’s waterfront.
KJ Development will build the complex on the site of the former Rocky’s restaurant and the parking lots across the street. The complex will feature 138 units.
"When Rocky's was coming toward its end, we really felt like it was an opportunity to think bigger," said Wes Johnson with KJ Development. "The vision really is to build a multi-family complex here."
Thirty-two units will be in two-story, townhouse-style buildings directly along the river. A four-story tower building will be built in the parking lots across the street with 106 units. The building will be raised and will sit over both sides of the flood wall.
The project will cost between $25 million and $28 million.
"We still have quite a bit of work to do to work out all the details and all of the engineering and architecture, but that's what the early plans look like," Johnson said.
KJ Development is the team behind Buckhead’s Mountain Grill, the popular restaurant is located directly next to the proposed project site. Buckhead’s will not be impacted by the project and business will go on there as usual.
"This is really kind of a way to get the folks in Louisville to think about living in southern Indiana, which has got some terrific amenities as well," Johnson said.
"It's a project that we're all going to be very excited about, but with the flood wall being in the middle of the project, there's also some obstacles there," Jeffersonville Mayor Mike Moore said.
The project would impact the murals along the flood wall, and Moore wants to have them re-done and moved elsewhere.
"I'm asking them to put up the money so we can get artists to re-do the murals that are going to be undercover," he said.
The project has already cleared its first big hurdle when the needed zoning change was approved this week. The developers are still in the early planning stages but hope to have construction started on the complex in early 2020.
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