Birch Dalton, manager for 31/32 Investors, said the Grand Millennium project at Park Street and Westfield Boulevard is on track with its construction timeline for Grand Millennium, a mixed-use development with residential, entertainment and multi-family components. It is being developed by 31/32 Investors.
One of the anchors of the development is the new Westfield Washington Public Library. Library officials recently announced plans to build a new, expanded branch in the Grand Millennium development.
Other buildings planned for construction within the $190 million development include a four-story apartment with retail stores on the first story and several high-end restaurants, which Dalton said he can’t name yet because of contracts, and eventually a convention center with several hotels. The local YMCA was originally planned to relocate to the Grand Millennium but instead moved to the Wheeler property several miles away.
All construction on the library, medical office building and apartments are expected to be complete by 2024. The entire project is expected to be complete in 2027.
“I think it brings to the (U.S.) 31 corridor and the downtown exactly what the leaders of this community have wanted for years – substantial building mass with the library and medical office building and livability with high-end luxury apartments,” Dalton said. “It fits in with their comprehensive plan. It brings everything you could want plus a hotel, then we’ll stay within our plan to build a convention entertainment center on the south (border) along with a couple hotels.”
Although the apartments, library and the medical office building will be constructed soon, Dalton said construction on the convention center likely won’t start until 2025.
“It’ll be a 3,000-seat, Vegas style entertainment venue for concerts and so forth,” Dalton said. “It can double as a 50,000- to 75,000-square-foot convention center for trade shows and meetings. It’ll be equivalent of the convention center downtown (Indianapolis) but for Hamilton County.”
Westfield Washington Public Library officials selected the Grand Millennium for construction of a new, $16 million library because of the pedestrian activity in the area.
“The reason we chose it is because it will be located within walking distance with Grand Junction and restaurant row,” WWPL Executive Director Sheryl Sollars said. “And we know that area will soon be exploding with a lot of things going on.”
Sollars hopes library patrons will enhance pedestrian traffic in the area. She said library construction is expected to start this spring or summer and is expected to open in fall 2023.
“Our vision is to have it as a community center for Westfield and Washington Township,” Sollars said. “It’s been shown (libraries) build the foot traffic which supports the nearby restaurants and retail. Plus, modern libraries have become such a go-to resource for budding entrepreneurs and information classes and workspace, and we hope to have that all in our new facility.”
Westfield Ambulatory Surgery Center and Medical Office Building Project Director Nedra Moran said she explored several sites before deciding to locate the medical office building within the Grand Millennium project.
“I studied a number of areas, and I studied all the places around Westfield, and at that juncture, it seemed to us based on all the data and growth and development and so on that’s happening, that this seemed to be the best place,” Moran said.
The building will be three stories with physicians’ offices, a freestanding surgery center, a wound care clinic, a hyperbaric center and other specialty centers.
“It will be a center of health excellence,” Moran said.
Next steps
31/32 Investors Manager Birch Dalton said the Grand Millennium development plans to move the library site slightly north to Park Street, where it will be flush with the Midland Trace Trail.
rand Millennium planners also expect to begin demolition of buildings in the development area in April, with interior road and utility construction beginning this summer.
“Based on the timing, all the construction for the medical office building and apartments will start in 2023,” Dalton said.
